Of course they should be open. They're spending public money on public/private/personal/pet projects. If it's a legitimate expenditure, they should have no qualms. The burden should always be on the government to show why they need to keep something secret, and not on the people to show why they have the right to see!

I agree that if there isn't anything bad they should feel proud to tell us how they are spending our money.

I find it funny that McCain is worried about earmarks when he supports a war in Iraq that has cost us billions and is bankrupting the Country. Also ironic that Jimmy Carter is building housing for the poor in Simi and the Reagan library in Simi honors the President who created the greatest number of homeless in the history of the Country.

I would suggest a visit to Citizen's Against Government Waste, www.cagw.org if you want to see the breadth and scope of earmarks. The thing I ugre everyone to remember is that the government does not have a single penny that they don't take from us first in the form of a tax or fee.

Earmarks are a drop in the bucket and a ruse by the GOP to divert attention from the fact the GOP have bankrupted the treasury with their insane war in Iraq. Billions of dollars that were sent to Iraq are missing and they dwarf the earmarks.

BK=Kuniki-
How about being upset about both? They are wasting taxpayer money on earmarks and in the oversight of the war in Iraq because the legislators care more about getting reelected than anything.

Perfectly stated Leslie. Govt Waste and pandering are products of both parties.

The waste being poured into Iraq is open and transparent. Only those in complete denial (like the Bush administration) see it otherwise. The waste being poured into other local projects anything but open and transparent.

I used to be a huge fan of McCain's as well - supported him in 2000. Sadly straight talk has become let's not offend the base talk.

Why not accept the bulk of the blame ourselves, for not making examples at election time of those politicos that vote to waste money? Instead of looking to the root of the problem...ourselves...we blame everyone else except the same culprits we vote back into office time after time.

David, You did see my link to cagw.org in my post, yes?

Is one of your top voting goals controlling government spending and adding transparency to the budget?

Shouldn't we get rid of earmarks altogether? Everyone seems to want to know where instead of saying, let's get rid of them. I'd support getting rid of them.

If you get rid of all earmarks you would have a situation where there's not enough time in the year for legislators to vote on all the additional. individual budget items. Perhaps the way to get rid of earmarks is to have the feds distribute a lot more of its revenues to the States and allow them to decide how that money will be spent on highways, mass transit, pig fecal studies, etc etc. Then confine the Feds' budget bills to strictly federal spending issues.

Not enough time to vote? Aren't we into a month here without one appropriation bill to the President for signature. Seems like the earmark process has actually slowed congress to a standstill.

Allow line-item vetoes or restrict the mixing of a "health care" bill with money for a museum or bridge.

Scott! That's exactly my point and if you were to take every supplemental appropriations request and make it a separate bill it would be impossible to handle them all. The few important bills could easily drown in the overwhelming flood of unimportant bills. Better to focus Congress on vital federal spending issues by turning responsibility for matters like a bridge-to-nowhere or a Woodstock museum over to the states.

Vito! The Line Item Veto places too much power in the hands of the executive branch. For one thing, it takes the power of the purse away from Congress and secondly...would you trust a rabidly partisan president NOT to use that power to punish?

I am not arguing for ending all earmarks, I am arguing we should know who is asking for what spending.

As long as rabidly partisan legislators are allowed to mix and match funding that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, I will support a line item veto. Get rid of the first and there will be no reason for the second. A President vetoes something in a bill and we definitely hear about it. Legislators slip in a pet project to non-related bill and we have no idea it ever took place. And yet years later, a legislator will be accused of voting against a particular bill, even though he was voting against the earmark that was attached to it at the time.

I don't think they are spending money according to ideology or party membership but instead to curry favor with special interest groups that could frequently care less about left VS right.

Would you trust Hillary Clinton with this new power shift to the executive?

I wouldn't of trusted Karl Rove with California's portion of the federal budget. that sounds really dangerous.

We to start with need full disclosure as to the origin of these earmarks.

Brian:

I guess I don't understand your position. We knew who was behind the bridge to nowhere, yet it still happened. Basically, you are just writing we need what we already have.

My view is that if it is a supplemental request "earmark" that has no national implication as most earmarks do, it should not be approved or even entertained. Basically, earmarks are future appropriation commitments on our tax dollars that have yet to be collected.

I find the process demeaning to taxpayers.

I am against them.

Earmarks are a sort of budgetary negotiation. Many times they are used badly, like in the bridge-to-nowhere case (which was finally struck down) and often they are used well, as in the case of the Congress bowing to the will of the People and including earmarks for child health care in bill after bill. In the end the value of an earmark is placed up for discussion and vote each time Congress debates and the president vetos. The system goes bad when enough congressmen sell out their vote for political reasons rather than for the value of the earmark...weighed against the value of the main bill.

Making every earmark transparent and open for public scrutiny should encourage a system were the bad earmarks are frowned upon and good earmarks supported.

Scott,

We sometimes know who made the request and why. We frequently know when it is passed into law. But we also need to know what attempts were made so we can see if they pass the smell test.

The first step is transparency so we can move to step two which is holding office holders accountable.

How is earmark spending against future tax receipts but normal spending is not? Could you clarify?

If you want earmarks for children's health, then pass a bill for children's health. Do not pass a bill increasing money to Iraq and add a "children's health" clause into it to make it more palatable to those opposed to the bigger issue.

I would rather have a bill that is pure in its passage, whether it is Bush or Clinton at the helm. The public then is aware of what is passed without any hidden dollars and can support or oppose it accordingly.

Earmarks are not hidden in bills. They are right out there in plain sight for legislators to deal with. It is up to YOUR representative to assess the value of an earmark in relation to the value of the main bill being discussed and do one of several things, including:lobby for its removal, stop the bill from moving forward or voting against it.

If your reps are NOT doing their jobs then fire them, cause they're either too lazy to read the legislation, too crooked to deal with it fairly or (more likely) too concerned to rock the boat because they have their own earmarks lined up for insertion into future bills and don't want to lose them because of some intelligent, honest rookie legislator who just won a seat from some lazy, crooked or self-serving politco in the next district.

The solution is to treat your representaives like any anyone else that is asking for your money: hold their feet to the fire on every legislative vote. If, instead, you'd rather see the government grow even larger than it is to accommodate all the new laws and loopholes that will be needed to satisfy voters and legislators alike, then you're just encouraging the problem.

Gary - my point is to have that info made transparent to the public, not the representative. I have no doubt that reps read the legislation because they all know how to slip in their own pet projects on a bill tht is likely to pass - or hold it hostage with a project that is going to fail so they can point the finger aat election time and say that Senator X voted against Health Care, when in fact that Senator voted against the bill's larger appropriation which was the war. We shouldn't have to hold their feet to the fire after the deed is done - but before it occurs in silence.

I have said nothing about having government grow larger - I want it to be accountable - period.

Vito, that's what I was trying to say also...in a more awkward way, unfortunately.

As for accountability....government is accountable to the voters. Its just that the voters aren't dumping the worst offenders in Congress...they keep returning them to office. Its not because they can't tell what their legislators are voting for, its because they don't make an effort to find out what's in those bills and they don't check to see how their rep voted on them.