Make Earmarks Public

We need the administration to approve full disclosure of earmarks by OMB. And Congress needs to live up to its promises. Robert Novak, Sun Times:

An even stronger example of the resiliency by the congressional pork purveyors is the appropriators' non-compliance with the ethics bill that has passed the Senate 96-2 but has not yet been finally enacted. Coburn last Monday delivered a letter to Byrd, saying: "The committee's failure to make earmark information public would make a mockery of recently passed earmark reforms and would suggest to taxpayers that the Senate wants to continue to earmark funds in secret."

And the Democrats are irresponsibly and shamelessly loading up a bill to fund our troops with pork. WSJ:

Thus has Mr. Bush's request for $100 billion to fund the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus $3 billion to replenish the disaster-relief fund, devolved into a $124.6 billion logrolling extravaganza. You can get the flavor from the bill's very first words on page two: "Title I -- Supplemental Appropriations for the Global War on Terror Chapter 1 Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service." Forget the Marines; send in the meat inspectors.

This bill has everything the modern military doesn't need. There's $25 million for spinach, designed to attract the vote of Sam Farr, a California farm-region liberal. Perhaps spinach growers who lost business due to last year's E. coli scare need this taxpayer bailout, but it won't intimidate the Taliban unless Mr. Farr plans to draft Popeye.

The Democrats' hold on the majority is thin. One of the reasons they won seats is voters were fed up with Republicans' failure to reign in porkbarrel spending and halt earmark abuse. The Republicans have learned the lesson. Have the Democrats? Don't count on it.