Quote Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg View Post
Since you worked up there I?d like your opinion on a theory of mine. Here it goes: The elimination of earmarks has killed the incentive for politicians to work together. In the old days, earmarks and support for pet projects in sub committees was how the parties bargained with each other. I?ll swap you this for that. With nothing to trade, the incentive to cooperate is eliminated.

Thoughts?
Earmarks were big for spending bills. And maybe the lack of that back and forth has also hurt cooperation on non-spending bills. But the bigger problem is that a lot of the "grease" that amde everything work before was the ability to provide benefits now and put the burdens off on future tax payers. The road doesn't look long enough for agreeing to kick the can to continue to work like it used to.