In light of the announcement by U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader John Boehner (R−Ohio) earlier this month that House Republicans will ban congressional earmarks when they take control of the body in January, Tufts and its surrounding communities are bracing for an even greater tightening of the belt.
Senators and representatives rely on earmarks as a source of funding for projects and programs in their respective states. Although they account for less than one−half of 1 percent of the federal budget, earmarks have increasingly become the focus of conservative ire.
For Tufts, the ban will likely have minimal effects, as the university receives only a small amount of money from federal earmarks, according to Vice President of University Relations Mary Jeka. Still, she said, the university will not be able to entirely evade the impact of the ban.
"Overall, the amount of funding received from congressional earmarks is modest," Jeka said in an e−mail to the Daily. "Although the support received from earmarks is not great, the ban will require efforts to find alternative sources of funding to minimize the impact on staff and projects."
The primary project that may be affected is the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, run through the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
In a recent interview with the Daily, University President Lawrence Bacow said that the research center receives an annual appropriation from the USDA for a cost−of−living increase, which is technically considered an earmark. Though Tufts does not depend on earmarks beyond this funding, the ban could prove challenging for the research center to overcome, he said.
"That's our exposure to earmarks," Bacow said. "It's a modest exposure for us. I'm not terribly concerned about it, but if the cost−of−living increase which they get goes away, that would be a problem."
The university is in the process of negotiating ways for the appropriation to sidestep its designation as an earmark, Bacow said.
On the local level, the elimination of earmarks could potentially restrict projects, as well as cut back long−running programs.
Somerville Board of Aldermen President John Connolly said conservative attacks on earmarks may be misplaced, and banning them could have adverse effects in communities nationwide.
"In the very general sense, it sounds all well and good until there's a particular economic situation, and you can pick any place in the country," Connolly told the Daily.
Education in Massachusetts, both at the primary, secondary and university levels, could face considerable setbacks if earmarks get hung up by legislators in Washington, he said.
In particular, the lack of research grants from the federal government's National Institutes of Health could produce a decline in the quality of instruction and result in fewer students working in labs, according to Connolly.
"It's going to have a very negative trickle−down effect," he said. "We're going to be doing an awful lot less in terms of money coming through."
Connolly foresees "extremely difficult consequences" for Somerville if the federal government does not continue allocating funds that the city has become accustomed to receiving. In the face of the impending lack of federal money, the city is doing everything it can to keep certain programs out of jeopardy, he said.
"We're not optimistic that the new Congress is going to be overly generous in dealing with the state of Massachusetts," he said.
The Green Line Extension project, designed to expand the T into Medford and Somerville, is one such program that the city is working to safeguard, Connolly said, though he was unsure exactly how much of the project is funded by federal money appropriated through earmarks.
City of Somerville spokesperson Mike Meehan said that he does not anticipate the Green Line extension to be affected by the spending halts.
But a $50 million project to add a stop to the Orange Line in Assembly Square may be jeopardized should Congress choose to stop earmarking, according to Meehan. A significant portion of the money for the new stop, he said, would come from the Transportation Authorization Bill, which legislates the amount of federal funds allocated to federal, state and municipal transit facilities.
Meehan believes the project will have long−term economic benefits for the community, and is a good use of American taxpayer dollars.
"That's the kind of project that pays off with long−term economic benefits — that would be the sort of the thing the federal government would be interested in funding," Meehan told the Daily. "If they're going to spend our tax dollars, they might as well spend it on something with a long−term economic benefit."
In the absence of earmarks, Connolly thinks Congress would see a much greater quantity of legislation, namely smaller bills with local funding initiatives, which could slow down appropriations to cities and towns across the country.
"Now, all of a sudden, you're going to have to deal with many, many larger volumes [of legislation]," he said.
Meehan said that banning earmarks would likely have little impact on improving the federal deficit.
"As I understand it, earmarks are a sliver of the sliver of the federal budget," he said. "They could get rid of all the earmarks and we'd still have a massive federal deficit." Matt Repka contributed reporting to this article.
