Kimberley Strassel reports on the trend in several states to pass laws making earmarks in state appropriations bills public. State politicians seem to be getting the idea that voters like to know more about what is going into government budgets.
These groups are aiming for more than just feel-good "open government." They're making a bet that transparency will succeed in limiting spending in ways that their other campaigns have not.
That hope is rooted in the idea that the best way to get Americans actively engaged in the debate over the size and efficiency of government is by giving them examples of government gone wrong. Reformers point to the current furor over Washington earmarks as proof. Tell Americans that the size of the federal government increased to a whopping $3 trillion, and their eyes glaze over. Tell them that the Alaska delegation was trying to appropriate some $300 million of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars to build a bridge for 50 people, and they go berserk. Much as they went berserk decades ago at the news the Pentagon had spent $640 on a toilet seat.
Now if that reform movement will just migrate more to the federal level. Some politicians like senators Coburn and Obama appear to get it, but others seem to think that they can keep conducting themselves as usual and that voters just won't care about little things like a politician slipping some money into a bill for a state project.
Even with greater transparency, will the humiliation factor work? Amid all House Appropriations Chairman David Obey's unconvincing reasons for keeping the public in the dark, he did make the fair point that even when embarrassing earmarks have been disclosed, Congress rallies around its porksters and approves the money. It's hard to shame people who have no shame.
And that's the next stage of the earmark debate. Forcing national politicians to admit to their bad spending habits is clearly difficult. Forcing them to stop, or pay the price at the polls, is the real test of "earmark reform."
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