In order for me to get through these tough times, I've had to watch a steady diet of John Stewart, and The Colbert Report.  But of course, I've found the reactions to two major stories in the last week to be rather curious.  The first story was the passing of last week's $410 billion omnibus spending bill.  That's $410 billion over and above the stimulus bill that was just passed not that long ago.  As per the Republican's usual playbook, they complained mostly not about the large amount of overall spending that was in the bill... after all... Republicans love large government spending as much as Democrats do.  No, they decided to complain mostly about "earmarks".  The only problem of course, and Democrats were happy to point this out, is that earmarks only account for less than 2% of the spending.  So what's the big deal?  Is 2% crap enough to condemn 98% of the bad?

This of course is the Republican mistake.  By concentrating on earmarks, they concede that the other 98% of the spending is somehow acceptable.  Every time this is done, it makes it harder and harder to reform the Federal Government.  More and more of the discussions that are had right now are about "earmark reform".  Earmark reform!  That's 2% of a massive, overbearing and unconstitutional spending level.

So how did people react most recently when it was announced that certain executives from AIG were going to receive $165 million in bonuses?  Well, it should be surprising that the overall reaction among pretty much everyone was that this was an outrage, that has to be stopped somehow.  After all, that bonus money is coming out of $170 billion in bailout money that was given to AIG in order to avert a financial crisis when AIG was deemed "too big to fail".

Hold on just a tick.  $165 million out of $170 billion?  Why, that's less than 1% of the bailout money being given as bonuses.  And when you think about it, that's really cheap.  After all, the typical finder fee is more in the range of 10-15%.  So those executives, who lobbied hard with the government to get that money, are actually taking a steep discount on their finders fee.  And honestly, just with the omnibus spending bill, why should we let less than 1% stand in the way of the good the rest of that money will do?  But of course, while some people (like our friend John Stewart) were willing to make excuses for the earmarks, nobody seems willing to make excuses for AIG.

The reality is, neither spending package is right... and although you can certainly argue that the "really bad" spending only accounts for a smaller percentage of the overall amount, it is a red flag that perhaps the rest of the money isn't being spent very wisely either.  Was AIG really too big to fail?  And if it was so poorly run that it got into those straights to begin with, then why do we seem ready to conceded that 99% of $170 billion is a "good investment"?  And when it comes to government spending, "earmarks" are really just the tip of the iceberg, as even "well run" government programs are generally run horribly... they are just well run by "government standards".

The problem is, we've become so used to bad government spending, that it hardly raises flags anymore.  The only thing left seems to earmarks, and even that is now being dismissed as just a "small percentage" of otherwise "good" spending.  It's time that people complain about the worst of the worst, but not to stop there.  If 2% is bad, then that ought to be a warning flag that the rest can't be that good either.