Redstate

Transparency was supposed to bring shame to earmarking, but our elected representatives are still bringing home plenty of bacon.

Well, duh. See, congressfolk are elected by people in their districts. And those people like seeing money come into the district. Hence, congressfolk are encouraged by the people who vote for them to "bring home the bacon".

Note sure why anyone expected anything else to happen.

"The answer isn't for our members of Congress to be, uh, responsible or anything. The answer is to raise your gasoline tax. And if you don't like that, then you clearly want to see more people collapse with bad bridges."

I had to open one of the links - I chose the one for the parking lot in Massachusetts...

Take a look at the reasoning of these people:

" Corbett said he hopes the project can be done solely with federal money. ``I don't want us to be any kind of burden on the town - it has enough on its plate as it is,'' said Corbett.

The airport has already reconstructed runways and the main taxi area by the control tower. Last year, a $1 million upgrade of Gate 3 and its ramp from the airplane hangars to the runway was completed.

In 2002, the airport received a new electrical power system, new safety lights, a new video surveillance system, perimeter security upgrades and a new runway, known as 17/35 - which runs directly in front of the air traffic control tower.

The entire project cost approximately $3.18 million, 90 percent of which was paid for by the Federal Aviation Administration, 7 percent by the state, and 3 percent, or $95,520, by the town. "

The guy says he doesn't want to be a burden on the town but it's okay to burden my butt in a state 1800 miles away???!!!! Jerk.

When I look at the text of the appropriations bills, at least some of the things I'd consider earmarks that actually appear in the text of the bills say something like "$n shall be made available to \ for \".

Those Federal Agencies are executive branch offices. Is there anything at all that would prevent a President from signing an executive order that prevented the money from being actually spent?

For that matter, couldn't the executive sign an XO that said something to the effect of 'notwithstanding the budgetary allocations from Congress, spending in excess of $n must be approved of by the appropriate Cabinet-level official'?

Am I just being naive here?

Not to quible, but the library in South Salem is in NY, not CT.

And the "renovate an amusement park in Texas" earmark is actually to remove most of the remnants of the old amusement park as part of a larger project to restore Aquarena Springs.