Jeff Flake: “there is another disturbing trend here. It's often thought that if there is a bipartisan basis for the offering of these…”

“there is another disturbing trend here. It's often thought that if there is a bipartisan basis for the offering of these earmarks that it's okay. As long as 60 percent goes to the majority, 40 percent to the minority, then it's okay whatever you fund. That shouldn't be the basis on which we distribute taxpayer dollars at all. In this case, for science grants there is a competitive and transparent process at the Federal agency level. If we're not happy with that process, we should intervene in that process, change it, mandate a more competitive process or a change in the process, instead of supplanting that process with one of our own that is far less competitive, that really is just political, because it pits one Member against another or one committee against another. That's not how money should be awarded. If the agencies have too much money, we should cut it. If they don't have enough, we should add more. We should stipulate, we should mandate, we should have oversight of those agencies. But basically saying we're just going to have our own process because we don't like what they're doing over there is not the right way to go. And I would say that this earmark is a good example of that, and for that reason, I offer the amendment and would urge its adoption.”