Two Aspects of Government Spending

(MoneyWatch)  These two articles discuss government spending in the U.S. and the U.K. They seem unrelated, but they are. First, this article in PhillyBurbs.com discusses two local companies that received earmarks from their local Congressman. ARCCA Inc. and Argon both got contracts from Defense and Homeland Security through earmarks. Second, a story in the UK's Telegraph about a Conservative proposal to hold civil servants personally responsible for wasting money. An earmark is money specifically directed at an entity in one of the U.S. government appropriation bills. Both companies happened to giver campaign contributions to their Representatives and have lobbyists. The main argument against earmarks is that they are not efficient as there is no competition and the government may be buying something they don't want or need. The Seattle Times has an article about how the U.S. military wanted to switch to a different decontamination system for personnel but the New York Congressional delegation kept giving money to a local company making in the eyes of the military an inferior product. The link to these two stories is that only the voters can hold an elected official responsible for "wasting" money and they rarely lose re-election.