Just an empty gesture?

Saturday, Dec. 4, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

Republicans have made a lot of noise about their pledge to ban earmarks, which are pet projects inserted into legislation by members of Congress that don’t go through the normal hearing process or aren’t part of an administration’s funding priorities. So, needless to say, an Associated Press story last week got our attention that began thusly:

“Senate Republicans’ ban on earmarks — money included in a bill by a lawmaker to benefit a home-state project or interest — was short-lived.

“Only three days after GOP senators and senators-elect renounced earmarks, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, got himself a whopping $200 million to settle an Arizona Indian tribe’s water rights claim against the government.

“Kyl slipped the measure into a larger bill sought by President Barack Obama and passed by the Senate on Friday to settle claims by black farmers and American Indians against the federal government. Kyl’s office insists the measure is not an earmark, and the House didn’t deem it one when it considered a version earlier this year.

“But it meets the know-it-when-you-see-it test, critics say. Under Senate rules, an earmark is a spending item inserted ‘primarily at the request of a senator’ that goes ‘to an entity, or (is) targeted to a specific state.’ ”

What Kyl did sure does sound like an earmark, as it did to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who said: “I do know an earmark when I see it. And this, my friends, is an earmark.”

A few weeks ago, we pointed out just how hard it would be for Republicans to keep this high-minded pledge not to use earmarks when crafting legislation. We also noted that one of the biggest Republican champions of the no-earmarks pledge, Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota — and one of the darlings of the Tea Party movement that has sought a ban on earmarks — wants to exclude transportation projects from falling under the ban. Now there is a dose of hypocrisy. Apparently she’s forgotten about one of the most infamous earmarks of recent years — the “Bridge to Nowhere,” an earmark sought by Alaska’s Republican members of Congress.

We’re not suggesting that the $200 million for the Arizona tribe was unwarranted. But it is obvious that putting a ban on earmarks won’t be as easy to implement as Republicans have led the American people to believe.

Even if Republicans were to rid the federal government of all earmarks, it’s not as if it would be a panacea. In fact, earmarks account for less than one-half of 1 percent of federal spending. This push by Republicans is all about symbolism. The burgeoning national debt should be addressed, but let’s move past the rhetoric and start dealing with the significantly difficult issues — and that means both cutting needless government spending and, where necessary, raising revenue to pay down the debt.

Obama and Congress need to find a way to start digging us out of the hole that President George W. Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress got us into when they started two wars and passed a huge tax cut without corresponding cuts in government spending or increased taxes elsewhere to balance the budget. What the American people want is plain talk and action that make a substantive difference. For that matter, they want members of Congress to talk to them like they’re adults — and act accordingly.