If Republicans want to talk about earmarks then let's talk about the earmarks that fund their wars.

[Bjorn Against]

In recent months the Republicans have made opposition to earmarks one of the major rallying cries of their party, they believe that speaking out against earmarks will be one of the primary issues that will win them back the millions of voters that have left the party in recent years.

At first glance it may seem as if the Republicans have found a winning issue to run on as many independents get riled up when they hear the word “earmark”. There are very few people who are really willing to stand up and defend earmarks for any projects outside of their own district, and for the projects that are in their district they usually refer to them as “roads” or “bridges” rather than earmarks. Some politicians such as John McCain and my own Congressman John Kline have publicly taken the stand that they will not put any earmarks into Congressional bills and they will vote down any bill which contains significant earmarks for other districts.

The Republicans believe that standing against earmarks will win them respect, in reality however the Republicans have accidentally handed the anti-war community a huge gift. If we are able to see that gift and take advantage of it we have an opportunity to start a major national debate on the earmarks that are being used to fund war and make the Republicans squirm at their own talking points while we do it.

We need to stop talking about the “funding for the war” and start talking about the earmarks for war. If we consider it an earmark when a state gets federal funding then why is not an earmark when federal funding goes to a foreign nation? If we say that federal funds being appropriated to fund the construction of a building here in the United States is an earmark, then why do we not consider spending federal money to construct a military base in Iraq to be an earmark? If we consider federal dollars going to fund programs in various Congressional Districts across our nation to be an earmark then why do we not consider money going to fund Israel to be an earmark?

What Republicans have done is they have tried to limit the discussion of earmarks to domestic spending, ultimately however there is no reason why the same standards for what constitutes an earmark should not be applied to money going overseas.

People like McCain and John Kline like to rail against earmarks and insist that all earmarks are bad, and they try to look principled by telling us they will not support earmarks for their own districts. These same politicians will however consistently vote for earmarks to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or Israel without questioning a single one of those earmarks.

If we were to stop talking about the funding for war and instead started to talk about the earmarks for war just imagine the situation that would put Republicans in. After all this time railing against earmarks all of a sudden they will put in a position in which they forced to defend earmarks that are far more expensive than the earmarks that are being handed to our own congressional districts.

Once we start talking about earmarks for war then the Republicans have only three choices that I can think of. First they could try and explain the position that earmarks going overseas are good but earmarks for America are bad, but for some reason I don't think that argument will go over too well with their constituents. Second they could decide to stop funding the wars, that would of course be the ideal scenario for us but is also the least likely of the three possibilities to actually happen. The third scenario which is the most likely one is that Republicans will be forced to drop the earmarks issue like a hot potato and run away with their tails between their legs, once the term earmarks starts being applied to their wars they simply are put into a situation in which they can not come out of the debate looking good.

We can not allow the Republicans to frame the definition of what an earmark is, if we are going to apply the word earmark to domestic spending then we need to apply it to our spending overseas as well. It is time to stop allowing the Republicans to control the terms of the debate, if they want to talk about earmarks then let us talk about earmarks but we are going to have that discussion on our terms.

[Bjorn Against]

1. People often claim the Republicans are better than us at framing...

It is false, Republicans are terrible at framing the issue. They call themselves pro-life while cheering on torture, war, and executions. They make blanket condemnations of all earmarks while supporting massive earmarks for war. The only reason many people think the Republicans are good at framing the debate is because our side is not good at challenging their frames.

Their frames are simplistic talking points that can easily be refuted, if our side would actually take the time to refute them the right-wing would go down in flames.