Federal-Earmark Example Points Out Problems

Earmarks, or allocations of government grants that are written into legislation and skip over typical review processes, may not support their directed purposes — and the government may not even know it, The New York Times reports.

The Times describes one case in which two Coast Guard ships were donated to Canvasback Missions, a religious charity in California, so that it could provide medical aid in the South Pacific. Instead, financial problems prompted Canvasback to sell one ship almost immediately and the second ship two years later.

This was news to politicians who had supported the bill, the newspaper reports. “If they were not used in Micronesia, they were definitely not used in the spirit of the way this was written,” says a spokesman for Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine.

Because the group added the $415,000 it received from the sales to the rest of its money, the proceeds from the ships donated by the government could have been used for missionary work, the newspaper writes, although Canvasback denies this.

Members of Congress set aside $29-billion in special provisions in 2005, reports The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Also, read a special report on earmarks in The Chronicle.

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