I've never heard of participatory budgeting before so I shall be very interested in reading your link. Thank you very much for that.

@Mopshell

Like your concept, unless I am mistaken you are lifting it from Participatory budgeting from brazil, places in the commonwealth and a few spots here. We have it in our town and it was born out of the necessity that our local politicians are bought and sold like the big boys in dysfunction junction. Evidently they forgot to take care of the ones who brought them and took care of the ones who bought them, as result over 80 percent of our general budget goes to pay for police and fire salaries with no interest being shown to back down anytime soon to improve and repair infrastructure. so we passed a bond and are slowly improving our city as determined by the electorate.

The only pitfall to the way our money gets allocated is that the city council can vote to defund the money pool (which they are trying to do) even though it is supposed to be a dedicated pool, unfortunately there is a loop hole that is there to prevent us going back into bankruptcy and our police unions who spent LOTS are hungry for their pay raise (a phony emergent need has been declared). So we shall see how it pays out, lawsuits are already being mentioned to protect what the electorate has declared.

For those who are interested here is a brief link to PB info:

http://www.participatorybudgeting.org/

Oh I know you're right that my idea would give a president in their first term a huge boost and that wouldn't always be a good thing. I was thinking that we're likely to have Democratic presidents for the next few cycles so I was being very partisan about it!

You are right though that it should be nonpartisan - a panel of independent experts perhaps. I'm thinking along the lines of a broad range of experts initially: engineers, economists, zoologists, botanists, architects (I want that mushroom-shaped Toadstool Museum to look good!), social work, medical, legal, education, tourism etc. Each of them could make recommendations on applications in their field before a core group meet to determine final decisions.

It would be a unique way of boosting local economies (which can only do the whole country some good) as well as communicating to all Americans that they matter and the government is there to help them at a local level as well.

Of course, whoever the president is at the time, they will find some way of taking credit for it, no matter how independent the base and core panels are!

However, after reading your blog, I'm in two minds about earmarks. To summarize: I'm against influence but for the effect.

I'll take the second one first. The positive economic effect on a district is surely a good thing. (I particularly like your Lower Foontville example and wonder if the Toadstool Museum is mushroom-shaped? I think it should be.)

Now for the first, influence, which is multi-layered.

Influence on voters: I'm enjoying the earmarks-empty incumbents' problems with justifying what I have done for you to the satisfaction of their constituents. With no earmarks to offer them, they are having to rely on issues and justify their voting records. It goes a long way to leveling the playing field for their challengers, who have no earmarks to boast about, and I'm all for that.

Incumbents shouldn't be given an easy time of it, especially those who have been pretty useless on the whole (and there's too many of them). In the past, they've used an earmark to promote themselves and that one local issue has been a strong attraction for voters, in spite of there being a challenger who could and would do a much better job. I think some of the close races we're seeing may be a strong indication of the effect no earmarks is having on voters; they are being forced to look at a much broader array of their incumbent's claims.

One particular instance comes to mind: McConnell telling constituents that creating local jobs, "is not my job". It used to be when earmarks abounded, and no doubt constituents are used to this largesse bestowed on them by their representatives, but no more. Given how few people take an active interest in politics, I'm wondering how many actually realize that earmarks have been banned. They may still be expecting them, especially from those who are Congressional leaders, and be disappointed. Who can tell? No-one has polled them on this issue as far as I know.

Influencing a member's vote: I can see your argument for this, particularly with reference to the current Congressional logjam, but it just doesn't sit well with me. On the one hand, I think it really wouldn't have had much effect on votes in the 113th session because of the avowed opposition to all things Obama from the Republican Party. I think they would have stuck to their extreme resentment come what may. Certainly no attempted concessions on behalf of the President has moved them in any way. If anything it has been a case of "give them and inch and they'll take a mile" as we saw all too clearly at work with the 16-day government shutdown.

On the other hand, I just don't like the idea of trading earmarks for votes. I'm probably being very naive and idealistic but to me there's something demeaning about it for those on both sides of the bargain. Members should be thinking about what is best for their constituents and when they go against that (as in failing to extend unemployment benefits), they should have to face those people and try to justify themselves. There shouldn't be any "outs" to change their votes or, worse, to sweeten/obscure their failures when it comes to the effects their votes have on constituents.

Congressional members should live and die politically by their own actions/inactions. Let the power reside with the electorate to decide and don't muddy the waters with earmarks (they're muddied enough with other kinds of bribes). If, as polling has shown for months now, the electorate really deplores the performance of Congress, then let them show that at the ballot box, if they will.

So, in order to resolve my conflict with this issue, how does one eliminate the influence while keeping the effect? I'd like to propose Presidential discretionary spending for every electorate. I see it working thus: without any input whatsoever from House Reps and Senators, interest groups from every electorate apply for funding for their particular project and one is chosen by the President (with assistance perhaps of an independent panel and the CBO), from each electoral district. This would maintain, even increase, the positive effects, especially as it is likely to cut out the more ludicrous ideas for earmarks that have been seen in the past. It also has a better chance of bypassing lobbyists (they too would be strictly prohibited from the process of application and selection).

Congress would hate it but I like it!