As part of the fiscal responsibility pledge they have made, Democrats are putting a 1-year moratorium on the practice of earmarks. That is the practice of Congress detailing how money is spent by a department once the money has been given in the budget–e.g., you have to spend this much on such-and-such a project in my district.

Now, it’s interesting the slant newspaper stories can take. This story goes on and on about how some of the earmarks are focused on worthy causes, which will be cut out if the Democrats get their way.

Although earmarks are best known for financing big public works projects, the moratorium will come with a distinct human cost.

Like a $250,000 earmark for Best Buddies International in Miami to help provide friendships and employment for the mentally retarded. A $250,000 earmark for a Kansas City domestic violence shelter’s effort to expand a school-based anti-violence program. Another $250,000 earmark to expand services to the vision-impaired in Alaska. And $50,000 for the Hungry Lil’ Readers Club in Minneapolis.

Makes it sound like the Dems are doing something doubly bad: cutting charity spending so they can terminate public works projects.

But then you read the NY Times article on the same story, and suddenly the Democrats’ move, while earning the scorn of at least one Senator (Pete Domenici), is ineffective and hollow:

But many if not most earmarks are recurring items, like money for a university research program or a public works project that Congressional sponsors insert each year. No Democrats have suggested any plan to cut or redirect that money.

Executive agencies know from past experience where the appropriations committees want that money to go. They have no incentive to cross the lawmakers who will be financing their future operations. And it can be costly to scrap a research or public works project for one year only to start it up again when Congress renews its instructions.

Either way, the Democrat’s new move to curb spending is getting drubbed–but it is interesting that these two stories, both from mainstream news sources, run almost completely contradictory to each other. Either the move is toothless or it’s not. It can’t be both ineffectual and harming good projects. Maybe the McClatchy writers just completely missed the story. But it does show how at least one of the stories has got to be dead wrong. And that gives one pause about any story you read in the media. Essentially, you have to cast a skeptical eye on just about everything, and try to piece together the truth from what can be sensibly reasoned.

Of course, none of this kept Bush from trying to take credit for it:

The moratorium has the backing of President Bush, who called it “a good start” toward imposing fiscal discipline on Capitol Hill. In his weekly radio address Dec. 16, Bush said that the number of earmarks has exploded in recent years, going from about 3,000 in 1996 to 13,000 in 2006. He said Congress has created a system where earmarks are often approved with no public debate.

As if Bush had been working hard all this time to curb spending–when, in fact, he has issued one and only one veto, and that was to limit stem cell research. But all those massively pork-barrel-laden bills that came before him he signed without so much as blinking. And now the Democrats, not even in charge yet, aren’t do enough to suit Bush to cut spending. Clearly, he sees fiscal responsibility about to be imposed and wants to make it look like he was the one who forced the Democrats to do it all.

A fascinating experience, reading the news.