Feeding Frenzy Continues

North County Times Editorial - Despite promises from Democrats that pork barrel spending would be sharply curtailed when they regained power in 2007, the feeding frenzy continues.

As we reported on Sunday (Feb. 24, "Local lawmakers rake in millions in earmarks" ), this year's federal budget includes more than 12,881 earmarks totaling more than $18 billion. Earmarks are requests that lawmakers insert into spending bills to fund their pet projects and to reward cronies, campaign contributors, and the folks back home.
While that's 23 percent less than the high-water mark set in 2005, it's far short of the 50 percent reduction in earmarks that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised. The Democrat, however, did direct $63 million in earmarks to her own San Francisco district.

North County's congressmen -- Republicans all -- haven't excused themselves from the feast. Rep. Duncan Hunter, El Cajon, led our congressional delegation by bringing in more than $25 million. As the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Hunter is well placed to bring home military-related earmarks. As a result, he ranked 20th among all House members in individual earmarks.

Rep. Brian Bilbray, Solana Beach, had only $1.6 million in solo earmarks. Rep. Darrell Issa, Vista, came in a little higher at $2.8 million.

These figures are pretty measly when compared with those of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who led the House with nearly $160 million in earmarks, and Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who got a stunning $389 million worth of earmarks.

The controversy over earmarks is of more than passing interest to North County. The exploits of former Congressman Randy Cunningham gave us an all-too-revealing look into the unsavory world of earmarks.

The most corrupting aspect of the earmarking process was a lawmaker's ability to secretly request spending on behalf of others without leaving any fingerprints.

Thanks to new rules, such requests can no longer be made anonymously.

Reps. Hunter, Issa and Bilbray deserve kudos for being among the first to make all of their earmark requests available to the public on their Web sites, even before the new rules were passed.

Issa deserves further recognition for announcing this year that he would no longer help businesses obtain earmarks. He's also requiring local governments and nonprofit organizations to have their councils and boards approve any request for federal money at one of their regular public meetings.

This new transparency has had unintended consequences, however. There is some evidence to suggest that the scramble for earmarks has become even more competitive now that everyone knows what their colleagues are requesting and receiving.

But the current system is much better than the one it replaced. No law can eradicate greed and ambition, but letting a little sun shine on the process doesn't hurt.

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