Nevada and ‘earmarks’

Democrats, in order to regain their slight majorities in Congress last fall, pledged to reform the earmark process by which politicians slip personal "earmarks" into spending bills -- monies diverted to win political support and ensure re-election back home -- by (at the very least) requiring delegates to 'fess up to which were theirs.

The fact that they are now scurrying around in search of ways to break this promise may be shocking ... to small children and those who work in sheltered workshops.

But Nevadans have particular reason to be disappointed.

Of course Democrats Harry Reid and Shelley Berkley now refuse to reveal their wish lists of favors for the moneyed interests back home. U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, a Republican, joins them in their conspiracy of silence, whimpering through a spokesman that current rules don't require him to say a word.

(Men like Oscar Goodman and Dominic Gentile call that "pleading the fifth.")

But that conservatives John Ensign and Rep. Dean Heller -- especially Sen. Ensign, who has often voted right on exposing such corruption when it applied to others -- also now refuse to list their earmarks, or even to admit they have any?

Now that is truly disappointing.

Rep. Heller says he isn't going to show us his until everyone else shows him theirs. Sens. Reid and Ensign say they don't want their constituents to get their hopes up about those promised ponies under the Christmas tree, because some might later be disappointed. Rep. Berkley says she fears lawmakers with "agendas" against earmarks might use her wish list to make her look silly or corrupt, explains her spokesman, David Cherry.

No law requires the delegates to publicize their earmark requests. But to date, 42 House members have "shown us theirs," disclosing their special requests or reporting that they seek none at all.

Six senators -- including John McCain of Arizona, who's running for president -- have also told Citizens Against Government Waste that they've requested no earmarks, this time around.

"The secrecy of this process has allowed too many lawmakers to fleece taxpayers and funnel large sums of money to a special few," explains Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., one of those who has released her list. "After all, sunshine is the best disinfectant."

Congress approved a record $29 billion in earmarks last year. Nevada's delegation won $167 million of that pork, ranking Nevada eighth in "pork per capita," as figured by Citizens Against Government Waste.

Just as parents tend to feel the public schools in general aren't so hot, but that their own kids' teacher is great, so constituents tend to be against pork in the abstract, but in favor of whatever bacon their own local congressman can haul home.

But this is like expanding your family budget as you come to depend on illegally gotten gains. It may be convenient to forget the same congressmen who pose at that fancy local ribbon-cutting are driving us ever deeper into debt, refusing to enforce the immigration laws as they tell hard-working doctors to make due with 40 cents on the dollar for tending our old folks.

But that kind of willful blindness can turn around and bite you, down the road.