Congressman John Campbell's Blog - Green Eyeshade Blog

Monday, April 06, 2009

Posted by: John Campbell at 1:14 PM

You probably weren’t aware, but Friday was a big day on Capitol Hill, even though Members rushed out of town on the eve of the April recess. But the filing deadline for Member earmark requests was upon them, or so they thought. Last year the Appropriations Committee extended the deadline (A Quiet Recess? 3/20/2008) because of an overload of requests, and this year didn’t disappoint. On Friday evening, Anne Schroeder Mullins from Politico posted a blog titled “There are so many earmarks in the House that…”

Here is an excerpt:

“Who says Members are opposed to earmarks? We hear that the earmark computer in the Appropriations Committee - the earmark database member request system, to be exact -- broke down today. Again. This after it was revamped after last year's overwhelming earmarking.”

That’s right, there were so many earmark requests that the computer that stores all of the information broke down…AGAIN! So the Appropriations Committee, for the second year in a row, extended the filing deadline.

Earmarks are a corrupting and abusive practice in Congress. You’d think that the ear markers would get the message, it’s not just the American people protesting the pork, it’s their office equipment now too!

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Vampire's Reflection writes:	Monday, April, 06, 2009 2:21 PM
Point of order
The Internet is not comprised of "tubes" and computers do not "break down" when they are overloaded. The database might have gotten corrupted due to poor design. That would be a software design problem directly attributable to the incompetence of the human who implemented the thing. Computers are not cars. The do not just "break down" because you "red-lined it", and when they do break down it is invariably due to things at the factory and never due to applications. I work with web servers that take millions of requests per day hooked to databases and these machines run for years, some for days. Some hard drive fail early on. Some motherboards burn out. Machines fail at different times but all run the same application. You can't design an application such that it will affect when a machine fails. Hard drives are rated for so many hours. So, you embarass yourself and sound completely the fool when you say the system "broke down" due to too many earmarks. No. The system "broke down" because some incompetent fool didn't know how to implement a database engine to accept a few hundred paltry records known as earmarks. In today's world where web sites are designed to be hammered with millions of updates daily using open source software and commodity hardware there is no excuse for the system doing the earmark management to go down other than the idiot who implemented it was an idiot. So, if you have any real outrage over the system going down, it should be directed at the fools who run it and manage the software.
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John writes:	Monday, April, 06, 2009 3:32 PM
Computers crash for lunch
The most common form of computer failures such as the one facing the budget committees are always to much info in a short period of time. Libs have used this to jam RNC computers for years.Just put a few thousand telephones on speed dial and turn em loose. Works every time, specially if they are using the same outdated equipment that the air traffic controllers have to use.
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Bob Munck writes:	Monday, April, 06, 2009 7:12 PM
Vampire's Reflection 2:21 PM
"if you have any real outrage over the system going down, it should be directed at the fools who run it and manage the software." You have no idea how bad government IT software and hardware are. I've been involved with attempts to upgrade the computer systems at the FAA, IRS, FBI, and VA, efforts whose budgets reached into the BILLIONS of dollars, and all but the VA were dismal failures. Until well into the 2000's, the FBI was essentially using their PCs as typewriters; the FAA got into trouble in the late 1980's because their air traffic computers, IBM 9020s, used discrete germanium transistors and no one was making them any more. The only upgrade that worked was the VA's VistA, an open-source medical records system. The big government contractors absolutely hated it, because it succeeded where they had all failed.
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Eric writes:	Tuesday, April, 07, 2009 11:50 AM
Computers don't just break down...?
Hey Vampire... don't try selling this one. Nobody's buying it. People have no idea how old this equipment really is. I do, and it's pathetic that our government is trying to get by on technology that's fifteen years old. The real fools are the decision makers that should've moved for immediate hardware upgrades when the Clinton Administration came into office, not the geeks who wrote the antiquated programs that were meant to work within a hardware architecture that was already out of date when they were installed. Wise up!
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justpaul writes:	Tuesday, April, 07, 2009 12:16 PM
Say What Vampire?
"You can't design an application such that it will affect when a machine fails." Oh REALLY? So every time Microsoft Explorer crashes on my Mac, while every other piece of software running, not to mention the Mac itself, just goes merrily along its way, it's because of a hardware problem in the computer and not in any way related to the application? You, sir, don't know crap about computers.
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Bob Munck writes:	Tuesday, April, 07, 2009 12:51 PM
justpaul 12:16 PM
"So every time Microsoft Explorer crashes on my Mac ... it's because of a hardware problem in the computer and not in any way related to the application?" What Vamp said was the exact OPPOSITE of that. Hardware rarely fails, and it's very rarely the result of something the software is doing. Your MSIE crashes are SOFTWARE failures; the hardware is running just fine. Judging from the respective comments, Vampire's Reflection knows a great deal more about computers than you do.
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Harold writes:	Tuesday, April, 28, 2009 2:49 PM
Anti-Pork Computers
Hello? Is anyone out there? The original post had nothing to do with the size, speed, reliability of the computer or the software. It has to do with the number of requests for earmarks. Who cares why (or even if) the computer system failed? The idea is that there are so many requests for earmarks the system could not handle them. My question is, What is an earmark? One man's vital project such as a flood control levi along the Mississippi or the completion of an interstate road such as the 241, might be another man's earmark. One man's earmark might be another's vital project like the monitoring of volcanos in Alaska or earthquakes in California. A bill to protect the manufacture of an airplane the Air Force does not need or want in order to maintain jobs or a bill to provide a community center named after the bill sponsor, now those are earmarks. Earmarks are like pornography; I can't define it but I will know it when I see it. Maybe we need an earmark czar.
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About John Campbell

John Campbell is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, and has taken a leadership role in addressing the country's top economic issues. Campbell serves as a member of the Joint Economic Committee, and House Committee on the Budget. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from UCLA and a Master's Degree in Taxation from USC.