In an editorial posted on the San Antonio Express News website, Joe Krier defends Kay Bailey Hutchison’s use of the much ballyhooed Congressional earmark to bring federal dollars back to Texas. He points to many examples of positive fallout for San Antonio as a result of Hutchison’s putting Texas first, including $8 million to the National Trauma Institute. “Are earmarks that provide for clinical trauma care and help cure an insidious disease good for San Antonio? I believe the answer is a resounding ‘yes’,” Klier opines.
We think he’s right, and it’s a shame that earmarks have such a negative connotation. In many instances, an earmark is the only way to secure funding for worthy projects if they are not a part of entitlement programs. In the case of NTI, trauma is unfortunately not a category funded through the Department of Health and Human Services. We have been lobbying to have it added to the HHS agenda, but in the meantime, we have had to work through Senator Hutchison and Representative Lamar Smith to secure financial attention.
We and those our research serves are grateful to Hutchison and Smith for recognizing the importance of research to improved clinical outcomes and for working to secure federal funds for this purpose–no matter what the process is called!
Obama didn’t deliver on his promise to decrease earmarks, so I’m glad the Congress is addressing. Earmarks need to be eliminated entirely, and a bill needs to be brought to the floor to eliminate earmarks, so the taxpayers can see who votes to eliminate and who doesn’t. That will help determine who keeps their job and who doesn’t!
We all wish that lawmakers would be more circumspect in their dolling out of federal money; unfortunately, that is often the only way really urgent issues can be addressed at the federal level. With no attention paid specifically to trauma within HHS, this is the only avenue open to NTI at the moment.