0:00

Welcome to Politics Aside . Hi

0:02

, my name is John Porter and I appreciate you joining

0:04

us today on just that topic

0:06

. Politics Aside , the only thing I ask

0:08

is that you put Politics Aside

0:10

, sit back and relax . The

0:13

purpose of today's webinar is

0:15

to talk about some things that are really current

0:18

happening in Washington DC , and

0:20

the topic we picked today is current

0:22

most any year , and it's been going back since

0:25

the literally since the 1790s

0:28

. So we're going to talk about pork

0:31

barrel spending , and there's different

0:33

titles , there's different names for it , and

0:35

it's about let's bring home the bacon

0:38

. At least , that's how I've heard it for years . So

0:40

again , welcome to Politics Aside

0:42

. The title is Appropriations

0:44

Deep Dive , and

0:46

we're going to address federal funding process

0:48

, and today I've got the Porter team , who

0:50

I will introduce here in a moment , but

0:52

I think , a little historical context

0:54

of earmarking and

0:58

, believe me , I am not making this up

1:00

. Many of you are on the line today Probably

1:02

are far bigger experts than

1:04

I am , but , generally

1:06

speaking , earmarks are for

1:08

a specific purpose . Okay , now

1:11

there will be lots of titles that we're talking about

1:13

how it's evolved into today

1:15

on Capitol Hill , but earmarks

1:17

are really a livestock term , believe

1:20

it or not , and it was a way for

1:22

ranchers and farmers to be able

1:24

to distinguish their cattle and

1:29

their farms and their

1:31

stock from others in a particular

1:34

field . So they needed

1:36

to create a mark , so

1:38

they created a certain earmark on

1:41

that livestock so they could tell again

1:43

which one was there . So , specifically

1:46

hogs , and this

1:48

is where the term pork barrel spending

1:50

has come from , because of the earmarks

1:53

on hogs . Now , the

1:55

first instance was the Lighthouse Act

1:57

of 1789 . And Ben

2:00

no , I was not around in 1789

2:02

. And so I can't prove it . And this was

2:04

not AI . I did look it up and

2:07

it was to fund and construct lighthouses

2:10

along the Atlantic coast . Seems

2:12

reasonable 1789 . And

2:14

then the end of the 19th

2:16

century , earmarking as a term

2:19

and pork barrel spending

2:21

really became the common

2:23

language to use . So there

2:26

was then a surge in 1994

2:28

through 2005

2:30

, give or take , when a moratorium was put in

2:32

place , and then after the moratorium

2:35

, 2021

2:37

, both sides Democrats , republicans

2:39

said hey , you know , we probably ought

2:42

to take a larger role in

2:44

funding projects across the country

2:46

. And as a former

2:48

member of Congress and having had those conversations

2:51

and those debates , I always

2:53

felt that a member of Congress who

2:55

runs for reelection every two years

2:57

or a US senator every six years Knows

3:00

a lot more about their district than

3:02

someone . Bless our friends here in the

3:04

administration , whoever the administration , I've

3:08

always felt that members of Congress have

3:10

a pretty good idea when

3:12

money should be spent , and it's a small

3:15

part of the federal budget which we're going to talk

3:17

about here in a moment . But let's , let's really

3:19

begin . I'm your use or team . You're

3:21

Chris Porter , some of you may know . He's vice president

3:23

of the Port of Group and the original member

3:26

of the Port of Group . Thank you , chris , for being here

3:28

and Ben Rosenbaum , vice president

3:30

, also the Port of Group , with years of experience in

3:32

the Senate and in the house

3:34

. But , chris , tell

3:36

us , how does it work today ? How does the appropriation

3:39

and what is the difference between appropriations

3:41

and earmarks and you know Congressional

3:43

Directive Spending ? What's the difference ?

3:45

Yeah , absolutely . Thank you for

3:47

the introduction . And in

3:49

general , appropriations process

3:51

is how Congress funds the government and

3:54

all their programs . There's 12 appropriation bills

3:56

. They'll pretty much lay out how much

3:58

money each federal agency

4:00

can spend in the upcoming physical year . So

4:02

we're now talking about FY

4:04

25 in this particular conversation , even

4:07

though we're still waiting on FY 24 to be

4:09

passed and I'm sure we'll get into that later . But

4:12

those appropriate , those 12 appropriations

4:14

bills , detail how much money goes to each

4:16

program under those agencies . So

4:18

during this , during the appropriation

4:20

process , there's a couple different ways that

4:22

people and organizations can

4:25

request money from Congress . One

4:27

of those that I'm going to kind of lump them together

4:29

, called programmatic and language requests I

4:32

mean generically it's

4:34

the programmatic requests is asking

4:36

for money to be increased to a federal or

4:39

to a certain agency . Perfect example

4:41

is maybe a special interest group that's

4:43

really big into the National Park Services

4:46

. They've required request

4:48

an increase to their overall funding

4:50

levels for FY 25 . So

4:52

that again very generic , but that's

4:54

one good example that what a programmatic

4:57

request is . Another one

4:59

is a language request and language

5:01

request is really using appropriation

5:03

process . Typically if you put

5:05

in a language request it's a make

5:07

a request to change a law or certain part of

5:09

that particular law . So again

5:11

going back appropriation processes , more

5:14

about increasing and decreasing funding

5:16

more than changing

5:18

the law itself . Now

5:20

the third option , which is which came

5:22

back about earmark process , poor

5:24

, barrel , barrel spending , everything else , so

5:27

Pretty

5:29

much congressional project funding

5:31

, or in the Senate is called correctionally

5:33

directed spending , is really

5:36

a political , politically correct way of saying . Earmarks

5:38

, cps now or or

5:40

CDS requests have been around for 3 cycles

5:42

now and it

5:45

is is what the earmark process

5:47

has involved to . The reason

5:49

for that is I think dad touched on it earlier Is

5:52

earmarks were really popular back in the early

5:54

2000s . There are a few

5:56

high profile cases where millions

5:58

and millions of dollars were wasted to bridges

6:01

to nowhere , which is , I think

6:03

, everybody's popular . My my paper

6:05

one was funding to study plankton on

6:07

underwater treadmills . I thought

6:09

that was also a pretty good one . But

6:12

those , those and similar requests received

6:14

a lot of bad press because again , money

6:16

was wasted At least it was perceived

6:18

that it was wasted on these programs . So over

6:20

the next 10 years I'm

6:23

sorry we're going to back it brought all

6:25

that bad press , brought about

6:27

an end to the earmark process

6:29

, and I was done under speaker Paul Ryan at the

6:31

time , since that period

6:34

of time is really up to the executive branch

6:36

to make the decisions

6:38

on on where those priority funding projects

6:40

went to . So that's when you always hear

6:42

the saying is I'm not going to let DC tell

6:44

me how I should spend my money locally

6:47

. Dad brought it up earlier as a member

6:49

of Congress . He , he thought he

6:51

, he knows , he knows how that money should

6:54

be spent better than someone back

6:56

here in DC . So

6:58

Congress wanted to take back that authority

7:00

to say I want to make these

7:02

decisions on how money is spent in

7:05

in my district . So they brought back

7:07

CPF or earmark funding with a lot

7:09

more guardrails and a lot more transparent

7:11

transparency than it had before

7:13

. So there's a lot more restrictions and

7:16

there's only certain pots of money you can request

7:18

from , and basically what they are

7:20

is they took grant programs from

7:22

previous grant programs and current

7:25

grant programs and created the earmark

7:27

process using those programs

7:29

.

7:31

So thank you , Chris . So

7:33

then , can someone just walk

7:35

in off the street and ask for a congressionally

7:38

funded programs , or

7:40

how does it work ? How does someone go about applying

7:43

? Yeah well , thanks , Garceman

7:45

.

7:45

So it's a unique process and , as

7:47

Chris kind of pointed out , you

7:49

know , it is kind of a catch-all for a number of

7:51

these programs . Some

7:53

of them are existing , some of them may be usually

7:56

done through a discretionary grant

7:58

program that an agency may hold , Some

8:00

of them may go through a formula fund

8:02

that are sometimes distributed to states

8:04

, counties , what have you . But

8:07

in the purposes of sort of

8:09

the modern-day earmarking process you

8:12

know , members of Congress solicit from

8:14

their communities what are the priority

8:16

projects and , as Chris alluded to , there's

8:18

only so many accounts they allow you

8:20

know are available . This is this isn't like you

8:22

know , in some situations and some state legislatures

8:25

they may get a slush fund . You got

8:27

, you know , $20 million . Decide

8:30

what pet projects you want to fund into who

8:32

. This is a very transparent process

8:35

now whereby members

8:37

offices will put out a form

8:39

. There's certain information they're looking for

8:41

certain accounts that are available to

8:43

apply for , and then

8:45

it goes through this entire process by which

8:47

an office looks at the

8:49

projects , decides what they think are worthy

8:52

, not worthy , they submit it to a

8:54

committee , the appropriations committee . They

8:56

make determinations as to which things

8:59

, kind of check the boxes . Some

9:02

things that I want to lay out

9:04

in this process is that , as

9:06

Chris pointed out , these are all things that are already

9:08

kind of authorized under the federal laws , and

9:11

so there are requirements and rules and

9:13

regulations that an organization must

9:15

follow if they're going to get some of these dollars

9:17

. So let's say , for instance , you know

9:20

you have an interest in getting some

9:22

resources for your community

9:24

. There's a form that an office will

9:26

put out . Each office kind of runs

9:28

their own solicitation process , so

9:31

you have to really have an understanding of you

9:33

know , am I even eligible ? Am I

9:35

a nonprofit ? Does my member of Congress

9:37

allow nonprofits to apply

9:39

?

9:40

Does my member of Congress even solicit for

9:43

appropriations request .

9:44

Not every office does . And so

9:46

there's all these processes that you have to determine

9:49

whether or not you qualify . Are

9:51

you going to meet some of the requirements that the federal

9:53

government has on this money on the back end

9:55

? And then , if it moves through

9:57

the entire process , which I know we'll get into a little

9:59

bit more , you know there's the

10:02

regulations and things that you have to do on the back end

10:04

that you're responsible for .

10:06

Oh , sorry

10:09

you're muted . Sam , Ben and

10:11

Chris , we talked about some

10:13

of those perceived projects through the

10:15

years that may have been

10:17

an abuse of authority , although

10:19

whatever the earmark , whatever the project , there

10:22

are people that were reaping the benefit . But

10:24

can you kind of bring it into context today ? What

10:27

are some of the things that are being asked for ? To give

10:29

everyone listening , when

10:31

is this money going under the new

10:33

rules today ?

10:35

Yeah , I can take that . You know the vast majority

10:37

of the funds and , as Chris pointed

10:39

out , there are 12 appropriations bills that cover all

10:41

the different agencies , departments

10:43

and programs of the federal government

10:45

. Some of them are quite large , some

10:47

of them are quite small . Not

10:50

all of them are available to be

10:52

to have funding directed under this

10:54

community project funding , this earmark process

10:57

. So there's a handful of accounts that are

10:59

available . The largest ones fall

11:02

under transportation , housing and urban development

11:04

, which you know , Department

11:06

of Transportation housing programs

11:09

, and another one that has very large

11:11

amounts of money that go through it are under labor

11:14

, health and human services , which also

11:16

covers education funding , and

11:19

so there's a number of projects that kind

11:21

of go through those two appropriations

11:23

bills . We also see large amounts

11:25

of money perhaps go through the Department

11:27

of Defense . The vast majority of that

11:29

is directed at , you know , institutions

11:32

of higher education that may be involved

11:35

in defense-related research programs

11:37

. So that's kind of the focus there

11:39

. And then we do see some big ticket appropriations

11:42

that may go through for water

11:44

infrastructure . That's another popular area

11:46

that a lot of communities request for money

11:49

from .

11:50

Yeah , and if I can add to that , Ben , we

11:52

also see a lot in the healthcare and law

11:54

enforcement accounts as well , especially

11:57

for those communities that are lacking

11:59

funding . And these

12:01

programs are CPFs great for , like

12:03

maybe phase one , phase two of a project

12:06

, right , it's pretty tough to find

12:08

those big ticket items like they

12:10

did in the past where they would receive 20

12:12

, 30 , 40 , 50 million dollars per project

12:15

. These are now more designed

12:17

to be I don't want to use the term shovel

12:19

ready , but shovel ready , I'm just going to throw

12:21

it out there something that we can get

12:23

, the member can get success on

12:25

and see the community reap the benefit

12:27

within a year's period of time , even though it does

12:30

take a little time to get that funding down and

12:32

that money actually spent

12:34

and other things going

12:39

towards that as well . So again

12:41

, for communities it's a great thing , and also

12:44

for road infrastructure . And then

12:46

to Ben's point again , a lot of

12:48

wastewater and clean water projects are

12:50

funded to this program .

12:52

So what I hear you saying is one

12:55

once you make the request and provide

12:58

the proper information to a member of Congress

13:00

, they then will

13:02

work with a constituent to see which

13:04

particular budget it may fit into

13:06

, if it would qualify and what it

13:08

would fit into . But once approved

13:10

, then there are steps even

13:12

to see it through the finish line . Right . What happens

13:15

next , after it's been approved by

13:17

the member , by Congress , by

13:19

the White House ? Then what happens ?

13:21

Yeah , I mean , you know , sort of start to finish , the

13:23

form has a that most offices

13:25

utilize . Again , they all have kind of their own

13:27

process for doing this , but there is some basic information

13:30

that is required in this process

13:32

. But then each account has

13:34

certain questions and regulations associated

13:37

with it . Some information may be required

13:39

for certain types of projects and accounts

13:41

that isn't required for others . One

13:44

great example of this is transportation projects

13:46

. Chris mentioned roadway projects is a major

13:48

interest area for a lot of communities

13:50

and counties and states , but

13:53

there are requirements associated with that that

13:55

are not required for others . So

13:57

you know , if you're familiar with transportation infrastructure

13:59

, there is a state or

14:01

local regional transportation improvement

14:04

plan that all communities have

14:06

and if they are to be considered

14:08

in this process , a project

14:11

let's say I want to do a lane expansion

14:13

on a highway is this even on

14:16

the regional or state transportation

14:18

improvement plan ? Has it kind of been vetted

14:20

through this budgetary process so that they

14:22

know that there is , that

14:24

they have a plan to build this out , they know what the

14:26

budget impacts are going to be , and

14:28

so that's one example of how you know certain

14:30

projects have additional requirements

14:32

and then on the back end you know you

14:35

may have cost share requirements . Not all

14:37

projects have that , but a number of these

14:39

accounts require you have a local share and

14:41

so communities are required to be able

14:43

to make up that difference . In some

14:45

situations you may not get the full amount

14:47

you request . How scalable is

14:49

this request ? If you only got half the

14:52

amount you requested , are you going to be able , as

14:54

Chris kind of pointed out , in that year's time

14:56

where this is supposed to be taking effect , is

14:58

this going to be able to advance that project

15:01

in a way ? Or , is you know

15:03

, is they half amount , not

15:05

going to cut it ? So there are certain things you have to

15:07

think through . You know , obviously

15:09

these are taxpayer dollars at the federal level so

15:12

they have to adhere to a number of federal

15:14

requirements . You know NEPA , environmental

15:16

regulations , workforce requirements

15:19

, that some

15:21

certain agencies and projects would have to fit under

15:23

. All of those things are under consideration

15:25

and so being able to kind of navigate that can

15:27

be quite challenging for applicants if

15:30

they're not kind of familiar with what they have to be

15:32

doing on the back end of all of this .

15:34

Well , how complicated is the

15:37

process to submit something . You

15:39

know I think many on the call I've

15:42

heard about grants and realized

15:44

that you have to dot every I

15:46

and you may have 50 pages . You

15:48

have to turn in and some of the

15:50

smaller organizations or communities may

15:52

not have a full staff of people . But

15:54

how complicated is that request

15:57

that someone is turning in and

15:59

how can it be simplified for that request

16:01

to be submitted to a member ?

16:04

I would say this that probably the most complicated

16:07

part of this , since we do have to sometimes

16:09

, or most of the times , put a square peg

16:11

in a round hole , depending on what the

16:13

request is or the need of the community

16:15

or the nonprofit is , trying to navigate

16:18

the regulations behind whatever pot

16:21

of money or account

16:23

that we're going for . So I would say

16:25

that would be one of the more challenging

16:27

pieces , and then getting

16:30

the data to back up the request

16:32

as well . A

16:38

lot of times there's needed if it's a study that

16:40

we're trying to find , at least to get the project rolling

16:42

, there's got to be a lot of detail

16:44

of the who , what , when and why , and

16:46

again those all have to fit into the regulations

16:49

within each account . So I'd say

16:51

, if anything , that's probably the more difficult

16:53

part of the whole process .

16:55

Yeah , compare that to the grant process

16:57

. Then if you would compare that grant .

17:00

Yeah , I mean it is . So , as we

17:02

said at the outset of this , a lot of these programs

17:05

are standing within the federal government

17:07

, so there already are requirements

17:09

you have to do . So basically , this allows

17:11

you to jump the queue in some of

17:13

these grant programs . Congress

17:16

is saying this is a worthy recipient of

17:18

those dollars , and so it's kind of

17:20

part before course . You know , the

17:22

city of wherever Johnstown

17:25

is going to receive a million dollars towards this

17:27

water project . They're still going

17:30

to have to fill out a lot of that same paperwork

17:32

that they would do and applying for a

17:34

grant , but they're going to do it as kind

17:36

of a recipient as opposed to an applicant . So

17:38

that's kind of the way that it's set up . I

17:40

mean , there are some additional things that I think

17:42

communities have to take into consideration , because

17:45

members of Congress are thinking through these things when they're making

17:47

these determinations . You know , is

17:49

this a good use of federal taxpayer dollars ? What

17:52

is the nexus ? Are they able to fund

17:54

this without this additional funds ? And so they're going

17:56

to have to make those determinations . So that's

17:58

a lot of the information that offices are soliciting

18:01

are to make the determination Is this a worthy

18:03

project ? Does it ? Does federal

18:06

investment necessary for it . And

18:08

so , you know , one of the things that often that

18:10

I have to accompany these applications

18:12

that go into these offices are

18:14

letters of support from the community . It

18:16

has to . You know , if I'm representing

18:19

a community and trying to help them get resources , are

18:21

their neighborhood organizations , nonprofits

18:23

, other municipal governments that have an interest

18:25

in this . They're not going to be the recipient

18:28

of the dollars , but they understand the needs there and

18:30

are they supportive of this , and

18:32

that is information that the committee now

18:34

requires . To be able to demonstrate this , and

18:37

, members of Congress , they have to post all

18:39

of this online . They have to say what

18:41

they requested and how much they requested , and

18:43

they have to stand behind this . You know , it's not . It's

18:46

not that they just get to go with a big check or

18:48

be able to cut a ribbon in the back end . They

18:50

have to stand behind these things and , as we've seen

18:53

, with the bridge to nowhere and some of these

18:55

other requests that you know kind of made the

18:57

news back in the day the

19:00

media opposing campaigns . They

19:02

love to go through these lists of projects

19:04

and say is this a worthy investment ? You

19:07

know what is their , what is their connection

19:09

to this , why is this something , and

19:11

so being able to demonstrate that community

19:13

support and that interest is really critical

19:15

for members of Congress to feel like this is

19:17

a good use of taxpayer dollars .

19:21

I'd like to share just for a moment my experience

19:23

, whether it was earmarks in

19:25

the Nevada State Senate or as a member of Congress

19:27

, to give you an example of the

19:30

media , what they or your opponents can

19:32

say or do . I'm going to get more into

19:34

the downside of this in a moment , but my experience

19:36

. I had requested

19:39

funds with another member of

19:41

Congress from Nevada for

19:43

a charter school I think it was about

19:45

$300,000 with Congresswoman

19:48

Shelley Berkeley , good friend , for

19:50

a charter school . Some

19:53

of my friends decided to use my

19:55

request as an example of a

19:58

waste , fraud and abuse . I

20:01

explained to them this is a charter school

20:03

that needed help . The

20:06

bulk of the funds about $30

20:08

million at the time had already been invested by

20:11

an individual to help with

20:13

individuals that need help the most . Bottom

20:15

line is there has been a lot of politics On

20:19

that . What really does

20:21

happen in a member's office when they're making

20:23

the decision ? Does regional projects

20:25

matter ? Does it matter if

20:27

it's a community or a school

20:30

? What really is in their decision

20:32

? It's 10, . Is that correct for House

20:34

members ?

20:34

No House members currently have a requirement

20:37

that they can only submit up to 15

20:39

projects across all 12 of those appropriations

20:42

bills . The Senate doesn't have a number

20:44

requirement . They can submit as many as they want

20:46

. Now they do have to put them in a priority

20:48

order when they do submit them to the committees

20:50

. But having spent a lot of time

20:52

looking at these lists and reading through these applications

20:55

to determine what is a worthy

20:57

project or not , the first

20:59

thing you do is you make sure that they've actually

21:01

filled out and got all the right information in there

21:04

, because committee will reject out of hand

21:06

. Don't waste a spot for somebody

21:08

who have completed an application . You

21:10

don't have the required information . So first are

21:12

you checking all those boxes ? The second

21:15

consideration in this every office will do

21:17

this differently . They may have

21:19

a large geographic area that

21:21

they represent in their district . They may

21:23

want to say , okay , well , every county

21:26

is going to get one of these . So

21:28

we have to think through how are we covering

21:30

geographically to make sure that there's diversity

21:32

there . Sometimes you

21:34

may be approaching this of what's the biggest need

21:36

. Well , we've had a huge increase

21:38

of usage at our airport . There's

21:41

a big demand for increasing the

21:43

infrastructure at our airport . So

21:45

if the airport brings me something that expands

21:48

access to the ticketing hall or for

21:50

the terminal , that may be something I

21:52

want to invest in because there's a big need there

21:54

. As Chris pointed out , water projects

21:56

are a huge one . We see that associated with a

21:58

lot of communities , especially out west , that

22:00

have grown so much in the recent years , especially

22:03

rural communities that oftentimes do

22:05

not have the tax base to be able to

22:07

do that on their own , or bonding

22:09

is out of the question , so

22:11

they may look at that as the biggest bang for your

22:13

buck . So there's a lot of things that determine . And

22:15

then politics does come into this

22:17

as well . As you mentioned , house

22:20

members are up every two years , a Senate every six

22:22

. You may be looking at the election

22:25

November and you want to be able to demonstrate

22:27

that you were hitting those constituents

22:29

that you want to

22:31

see turn out for you . So there

22:34

certainly may be a political discussion , but

22:37

offices will work with their district staff

22:39

who have a lot of on the ground experience

22:42

with this , and then they will decide

22:44

amongst all the projects they get which ones are the

22:46

most worthy and submit them , and then

22:48

they have to stand behind that throughout the process .

22:51

Chris , can you take a moment and share

22:54

your experience , as

22:56

you've seen , earmarks sorry

22:59

, congressionally directed spending

23:01

, or whatever the title earmarks how

23:03

they've come back onto the hill and how

23:06

it is transitioning even today

23:08

from where it was a couple years ago .

23:12

Yeah , I think , just going back to how

23:15

, in the past

23:17

earmarks , they could ask for money from which almost

23:19

anything , and not have any accountability

23:22

, truly any accountability of how much

23:24

was asked for , how much was given and

23:26

where that money went exactly . I

23:29

think this process has been one

23:32

. Initially , one CPF

23:35

hit the streets and we started working with the

23:37

members offices on him . I think we

23:39

were all a little like , well , how come it's not

23:41

as easy as it used to be ? What's going on ? What

23:43

are ? What are these accounts we're really looking

23:45

at and what are these regulations saying

23:48

? What does it mean ? And then how are

23:50

the agencies going to ? Once

23:52

they're approved and once they're passed and

23:54

they're appropriations and get

23:56

signed into law by the president , what do

23:58

we do now ? Because the agencies

24:01

also didn't have the staff in place to handle

24:03

these requests because they

24:05

were a large amount of requests . So

24:08

I think what was nice is that we were on the ground floor

24:10

as we went through this process

24:12

, so we were learning as the staff was learning

24:14

, on what's acceptable , what's

24:16

not acceptable , what's the committee really

24:18

looking for , and then how does

24:20

that all fit into the priority of the members

24:23

office ? So again

24:25

, I think there's I think there's the

24:28

optics of CDS

24:31

requests or CPF requests have

24:33

come a long way from where they were , which is , you

24:36

know , there's those huge earmark

24:38

earmarks go into special

24:40

interest groups or or companies or

24:43

whatever

24:45

. I just think that the the transparency

24:47

is there and I think it's appreciated

24:49

by the communities , now more than ever .

24:53

We have a really great question in the in

24:55

the chat room and that is is there a timeframe

24:57

for the fiscal year 25 request

24:59

? Has that been scheduled yet ?

25:02

Yeah , so that's a great question . As

25:05

we , as Chris pointed out , we're still kind of working

25:07

through the FY 24 process

25:09

that was supposed to be completed last September

25:12

. You know , over about a year

25:14

ago we were working on last year's requests

25:16

Most of those . You know that both

25:18

the House and Senate have put forward their bills and listed

25:20

out which projects were being selected , and we're

25:23

supposed to be in the process of reconciling those

25:25

2 . But the FY 25

25:27

process is already getting started . Offices

25:29

are now putting up their forms

25:32

. In some cases Some

25:34

of them are waiting for the president's

25:36

budget , which sometimes kind of kicks

25:38

off this process each year . At the

25:40

moment we're expecting President Biden to submit

25:42

his budget to Congress on March 11th

25:45

and which time we may

25:47

then receive guidance

25:49

from both the House and Senate appropriations committees

25:51

, and sometimes offices will utilize that

25:53

that as kind of their kickoff process

25:55

. It'll likely be a pretty quick process

25:58

. We are anticipating that it could be a very

26:00

short turnaround window , but

26:02

we , you know , sometime between now

26:04

and the next 2 months is when we expect

26:07

the fiscal year 25 request

26:09

process To be completed , at least

26:11

on the initial part where you're submitting them to

26:13

the offices . Offices will then be going through

26:15

their own process of submitting them to the committees

26:18

. The committee will then do its process of

26:20

determining which ones it wants to pick , and

26:22

then Congress you know , both the House and Senate will

26:24

determine which bills they want

26:26

to advance and are they going to make any changes

26:28

to those lists . So it is . It's just

26:30

we're in the very early stages of

26:33

this whole whole thing .

26:35

So for either one of you but say

26:38

you have the House making requests and then you

26:40

have the Senate making requests , would

26:43

there be duplications ? Or do they then

26:45

compare notes ? What happens

26:48

when with both houses ? How does that all

26:50

come together ?

26:52

Yeah , well , typically the house goes a little

26:54

sooner than the Senate . But

26:56

I can tell you that there's a number

26:58

of places where you will see requests

27:01

that are filed by both the House and Senate

27:03

get funded . They may be filed , they may

27:05

be funded at different levels and they're going to have to reconcile

27:07

those numbers . Do they take the higher one

27:10

or the lower one , or a different number

27:12

altogether ? But you

27:14

know , both the House and Senate sometimes

27:16

offices will work in coordination , Sometimes

27:18

delegations will work in coordination .

27:21

but sometimes they don't get a lot , sometimes

27:24

they don't get along at all right , exactly Well

27:28

, I hate to say that this is becoming

27:30

the norm , but I'm in a very

27:32

serious note saying that it is . You

27:34

know , government shutdowns there's been 21

27:37

or more in the last 50 years , I

27:40

think , when the longest was under

27:43

President Trump , for 34 some days , and

27:46

there are a lot of members of Congress and the Senate

27:48

that have

27:50

made choices on how to

27:52

fund the government , how not to fund the government , and

27:55

we'll leave that for politics another

27:57

time and not during politics aside . But

28:00

what does it mean ? Again

28:03

, shutdowns have become the norm , they're

28:05

not unusual . What happens to

28:07

earmarks per se during

28:10

a quote shutdown ?

28:13

I'll give you , I'll give the earmark answer

28:15

to that . At least historically over

28:17

the past couple of cycles . I

28:19

mean , they've been delayed , they've , they've

28:22

, they have not historically again , historically

28:24

being a short period of time in this case They've

28:26

never been pulled from an appropriations

28:29

package . So we

28:31

are thinking positively , that's going to be

28:33

the same for FY 24 . And

28:35

then also moving into FY 25 . So

28:38

at least we have that to look at in

28:41

for FY 23

28:43

. There was a delay

28:45

so that that didn't . The appropriations

28:47

package didn't pass until March

28:50

, or was that 22 . So

28:53

that didn't happen till March . So there was a . There

28:55

was a delay in getting those

28:58

earmarked funds or CPF funds

29:00

to the recipients because of

29:02

that delay in the voting .

29:05

Yeah , I mean we've . We've been operating under Canadian

29:07

resolutions since the end of September . The

29:09

projects typically aren't the reason

29:11

why there's a delay . It's all

29:13

the other politics , political writers

29:16

, language things that they want to

29:18

include in there , even though these are not supposed to be

29:20

language bills , are supposed to be just funding

29:22

bills . But that that's

29:24

what's caused a lot of the delays , and

29:26

so you know , we'll see when they complete

29:28

that process . Again , as Chris mentioned , it's going to delay

29:30

, you know , the recipients from receiving those because the agencies have to do

29:34

their work once this is signed into law

29:36

. But as

29:39

we understand it , all those projects are

29:41

are just waiting for the for

29:43

the larger bills to be finalized so that

29:45

they can move forward to the president's

29:47

desk .

29:49

We talked a little bit earlier about

29:51

the philosophy Whether

29:54

Congress should have a say or

29:56

whether it should be strictly through the administration

29:58

when it comes to funding projects . And course

30:00

, now that funding is available

30:03

, who ? Who's opposed

30:05

to this process ? Is

30:08

it constituents ? Is it the

30:10

business community ? Is it public ? Is it

30:12

public agency ? Who's opposed

30:14

?

30:15

Putting on my Democrats hat . I was about to

30:17

be talking publicly .

30:24

I'll say , you know , I worked for two Democratic members of Congress

30:26

one of them , one of the Senate , one of the House and

30:28

we loved earmarks because we were able

30:31

, as you kind of said of the outset , to

30:33

make determinations . We've been meeting with these

30:35

folks at the local level . We have an understanding

30:37

of what's going on and anything

30:40

we can do to direct resources towards

30:42

those who need it most , to

30:44

make projects that advance and allow for

30:46

economic development to occur , or workforce

30:49

development or support education . That's what we

30:51

were going for . There are a number of members

30:53

who believe that the federal

30:55

government is too large and they want to

30:57

cut spending . This

30:59

is one spot , one

31:01

that gets a lot of attention , way more than it

31:03

probably deserves , because I think last

31:05

year or pending , we've got I

31:08

think the request account for maybe around

31:10

half of a percent of the federal budget

31:12

. It's not a huge

31:14

number . You know , when you're talking about trillions of

31:16

dollars in federal spending , we're

31:18

talking about maybe

31:21

a few . You know 10 to 20

31:23

billion . It's much

31:25

smaller than the overall federal government

31:27

but it has a bigger impact for

31:29

a lot of these smaller communities . I mean , there are

31:31

certainly folks in the House , freedom Caucus and the far

31:33

right who are opposed to

31:36

increased spending . They want to see decreases

31:38

. I will say you

31:40

look at this year and what's still pending

31:42

in FY24 , a number

31:45

of members associated with those positions requested

31:47

hundreds of millions of dollars in spending

31:50

. If that's come about it , they say well , I don't want

31:52

an unelected bureaucrat determining how

31:54

these taxpayer dollars are going out . So you

31:56

know , you can say one thing on a Monday and

31:58

another thing on a Tuesday .

32:00

Well , at the end of the day , I mean , the money is going

32:02

to be spent somewhere , so it's appropriated

32:05

. And where's it going to be spent ? And it's going to

32:07

. I mean , if I were a member of Congress , even if

32:09

I was opposed to that level of spending , I'd still want

32:11

, you know , to bring back the

32:13

share that should belong to the community that

32:15

I'm a part of .

32:18

So online we do

32:20

have clients at times and

32:22

friends that do not believe in accepting

32:25

federal assistance correct .

32:29

Thank you . Was

32:31

that a yes ? I thought so . Yeah , of course we

32:33

did yes .

32:34

Yeah , because there is a philosophical

32:36

difference out there , where individuals

32:38

and communities have decided

32:40

that they too don't want to share or

32:43

be a part of the problem . When it comes to

32:45

federal spending and , as

32:48

you mentioned , ben , it's 1% of

32:50

the full federal budget . And

32:53

from the politics here for a moment

32:55

, politicians bless

32:57

all of us , always

33:00

looking for a common enemy , and

33:02

it's really easy to pick on their marks

33:04

because they're visible , they're

33:06

accountant and , by the way , there was accountability

33:09

, but it's fairly easy target

33:11

. But again , my philosophy

33:13

is , I think , that , as

33:15

an organization , whomever is on our

33:17

webinar today

33:20

and we have about 9,000

33:22

followers out there , so I'm not sure how many are

33:24

paying attention but my

33:27

perspective is that , as

33:29

communities , as organizations

33:31

in the communities , I encourage

33:34

that you speak to your member of Congress and your senator

33:37

. There's a project that is near

33:39

and dear to you . It does not

33:41

hurt to go see your member of Congress

33:43

to talk to them about what you think

33:45

would be best for your community

33:48

, for your organization . Members

33:50

of Congress really want to make a difference

33:52

, and the Senate when I say

33:54

Congress , it's both houses , but the

33:56

members of Congress really do want to

33:58

make a difference . In fine projects . One

34:01

, regional significance is always a positive

34:03

, but also that can really help individuals

34:06

that need help the most . So

34:09

I encourage you , make

34:11

an appointment and go see your member of Congress or

34:13

your senator Before we conclude

34:16

, ben , of course , anything else that you guys would like

34:18

to add today . I appreciate you being with us .

34:21

Yeah , I mean , I'll just add . I mean this

34:23

can be a challenging process . It

34:25

changes from year to year . The requirements

34:28

change , the accounts that are available change and

34:30

the powers that be change

34:33

, which has an impact on how all of this goes . And

34:36

it oftentimes takes folks

34:38

who have a kind of a finger

34:40

on the pulse to be able to really , you

34:42

know , see this through . And

34:44

so if we at the quarter group can

34:47

be of any assistance to folks , that's what we're

34:49

here for . But yeah

34:51

, I mean that's that's all . I'll leave it with .

34:54

Yeah , and I'll echo what Ben says as well . I mean

34:56

that's . I mean we're here to support , we're here to

34:58

help . Please let us know . But

35:00

also stress too that the members office

35:03

have I mean they've been in now a

35:05

few cycles , so their staff

35:07

is very educated on the process

35:09

and can be an amazing resource to

35:12

you If you're a nonprofit or even a

35:14

government entity . But just

35:16

know that they do have thousands of requests

35:18

and we just make sure that it has the best

35:21

shine on it to get to get past that

35:23

initial , that initial vetting stage .

35:26

Well , with that , again , I want to say thank you

35:28

to Chris and to Ben for being

35:30

a part of this , and I know you work with

35:33

this process every day and seeing

35:35

as it evolves and is

35:37

molded by the particular Congress

35:39

in session , so I want to say thank you . So

35:42

thank you for joining politics aside . My

35:45

goal is to try to bring individuals

35:47

that know a lot more than I do to

35:49

the table , so you have a chance to listen to some

35:51

of the experts . We've had multiple

35:53

topics , but today , I think is very

35:55

timely that we talked about bringing home

35:58

the bacon . So , with that

36:00

, thank you again for joining politics aside . My

36:02

name is John Porter . I really appreciate you spending

36:04

time with us today . Thank you .

36:07

Thank you , thank you .