September 2, 2006

Earmarks Update

The Saturday Tennessean has an editorial about earmarks, those often-secretive funding requests that members of Congress now routinely use to spend tax dollars. I recently requested of all nine members of Tennessee's congressional delegation information about which earmarks in the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriation bill now before Congress they had sponsored, as part of the Washington Examiner/Porkbusters.org/Sunlight Foundation/Blogosphere's investigation of earmarks and pork spending. Only a few of them responded. I expect to publish a follow-up to this report Monday or Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Tennessean editorial is absolutely right: "When lawmakers aren't willing to justify spending requests through an open process, both the budget and the taxpayers are heading for trouble."