Despite promising increased transparency in the legislative earmarking process the Democrats have instead continued to hand out earmarks and conceal the sources.

Staffers for only 31 of the 435 members of the House contacted by CNN between Wednesday and Friday of last week supplied a list of their earmark requests for fiscal year 2008, which begins on October 1, or pointed callers to Web sites where those earmark requests were posted.

Of the remainder, 68 declined to provide CNN with a list, and 329 either didn’t respond to requests or said they would get back to us, and didn’t.

Seven members of the House said they had no earmark requests.

Earmarks were just one of many reasons that voters ditched the GOP in the last election.  The Democrats promised to be different and (surprise!) aren’t living up to that promise.

Of course, some in the GOP haven’t been able to curb their addiction - or even use reasonable discretion.  Alaska Senator Don Young, of Bridge to Nowhere fame, recently earmarked $10 million for a specific road in Florida.  Why would an Alaskan senator give federal money to Florida?  Because a man who ran a $40k fundraiser for Young owns property that will ostensibly appreciate in value because of the improvements to the road in question.  At least in most circumstances politicians who trade public treasure for personal profit (campaign contributions are tangible and tantamount to personal profit) can claim plausible deniability and say that they’re just trying to help out their district.  Not in this circumstance.  I wouldn’t have a problem with Young being tried as a felon for essentially stealing $10 million of our money to pay off a supporter.

The local GOP congressman in that area, Connie Mack, was a true profile in fiscal responsibility and personal ethics.

U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers, followed with a January 2006 letter warning county officials of sending Congress an “unintended message . . . that our region is willing to reject scarce federal resources.” Mack also said rejection might keep the county from getting federal money for other projects.

Mack forced the county to take this tainted money under threat of losing access to future federal funding.  What a class act.

The Young bribe is emblematic of why earmarks are bad for America.  Politicians use them to reward friends, enrich themselves, and purchase votes from citizens with their own money.  Granted, the sum total of all earmarks is a drop in the bucket compared to entitlement spending, but the harm that they do the country by facilitating corruption and political entrenchment is immeasurable.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Ethics Scandals, Politics, Pork. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.