The White House has created a website that lists all earmarks for the 2004-05 fiscal year.

It’s a great start for showing the American people how Congress hid 13,496 earmarks (budget items buried in nonrelated bills) that totaled billions of dollars. As Representative Jeff Flake (R-Az) said, “I think when taxpayers take a look, they’ll be quite upset at how their dollars are being spent.”

It was a good start by the White House, but it doesn’t go far enough, omitting two key pieces of information.

First, it does not list the sponsoring lawmaker and second, it does include any earmarks requested from the President and his administration. Without this information, it is hard to hold anyone accountable and to see how involved the administration is in this shameful practice.