Smoking Out Pork

Our neighbor to the north, Wisconsin Democrat David Obey is trying to pull a fast one as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee by burying earmarks in conference committee. NRO:

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey says he and his staff are so overwhelmed with earmark requests this year, they're not putting any earmarks into bills until conference committee — at which point rank-and-file members won't have a chance to offer amendments striking egregious earmarks or eliminating wasteful spending.

In a letter to Obey quoted by NRO, free-market Americans for Prosperity has offered him help to evaluate them.

Obey is in hot water at home--the Wisconsin State Journal has noticed (HT Instapundit). There are limits even in liberal Madison:

In six months David Obey has gone from hero to villain.

Late last year the Wisconsin Democrat who heads the powerful House Appropriations Committee helped to spark an effort to save taxpayers billions of dollars by reining in pork-barrel spending.

But Obey is now dodging the very reforms he helped to generate.

Apparently the number of earmark requests is up to 30,000 plus, up from 4,000 in 1994 and 13,500 in 2005. Here in Illinois AFP has been doing the rounds smoking out pork, lately in East St. Louis:

AFP’s questions revolve around a project variously known as the “Lincoln Community & Cultural Center,” the “Lincoln Center Sewing Factory” and the “Lincoln Training Center,” which has received at least $550,000 in earmarked state funds during the 2007 fiscal year through memorandums of understanding.

Apparently the funds have not been spent to improve the building, nor are computer and sewing classes in session, and predictably someone well-connected was hired to be in charge, raising the perennial question of where all the money went and why it was appropriated in the first place.

UPDATE: Good editorial by the Sun Times on congressional earmarks:

When they took office in January, Democrats made a great show of adopting rules to rein in Congress' rampant pork barrel practices, requiring that projects earmarked for federal dollars -- and their sponsors -- are well-publicized. The idea was that subjecting the projects to public scrutiny would weed out the worst abuses -- such as the infamous $223 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. But Democrats in the House seem to be blowing their first opportunity to demonstrate they mean business.