Won’t get fooled again

Last year, when Republicans still controlled both houses of Congress, a draft version of the water projects bill currently moving through the Capitol contained a whopping 272 "earmarks" -- pork projects that promote not "the general welfare," but the very specific welfare of some very specific (and generous) constituency.

Senators and congressmen used to be allowed to slip in late at night and load up spending bills with these custom items till they appeared ready to burst like pinatas -- without even attaching their names.

Over the past decade, the amount of earmarked federal money has tripled. This became a major issue in the 2006 campaign. The practice played a role in scandals involving convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Late-night comedians had a field day after it was revealed then-House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, had slipped a $223 million "bridge to nowhere" -- connecting an island with about 50 inhabitants to the Alaska mainland -- into the 2005 highway bill.

Democrats promised to reform the "earmarks" porkfest. Hopeful voters gave them slim majorities in both houses.

And indeed, there have been changes.

"Earmarks can no longer be inserted anonymously, in the dead of night, to please a powerful lobbyist or political supporter," explains Jim Berard, spokesman for Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which wrote the House version of the water bill. This "is a major step toward re-establishing trust with the American public," Mr. Berard told the Los Angeles Times this week.

Sponsors of each project in such spending bills are now identified. And senators, for the first time, signed statements -- posted on the Internet -- vowing neither they nor their spouses have a financial stake in any project they've earmarked.

Imagine that. An "I'm not corrupt" pledge.

But reformers assumed -- or expected others to assume -- that the bright light of openness would reduce the favors and the payoffs.

To believe that, one need only believe our delegates to Washington are capable of feeling "shame."

Can anyone spot the fatal weakness in this plan?

When the Democrats came to power four months ago, President Bush challenged them to halve the number and dollar value of earmarks, from a record 13,496 worth $19 billion in 2005.

Back when Republicans were in charge, and such earmarks could be added anonymously, the water bill contained 272. Today, the Senate version of the bill contains 446 earmarked projects. The House version has 692.

My, but the beavers have been busy.

As it turns out, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., new chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee (which drafted the $14 billion bill), directed one-tenth of the money, or about $1.4 billion, to projects in her own state -- few if any of them justifiable under "interstate commerce" or any other delegated federal power.

"It's good to be queen," quips Steve Ellis of the Washington-based watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Sen. Boxer secured $25 million for revitalizing the Los Angeles River, more than twice the amount Republicans had intended to put in their bill, which died in the last Congress.

The "Los Angeles River" is a concrete culvert. Ms. Boxer has described the project as one designed to transform that oft-maligned drainage ditch from a "concrete eyesore into a beautiful asset."

Instead of earmarks being inserted in the dead of night to please a powerful lobbyist or political supporter, they're now inserted in broad daylight to please a powerful lobbyist or political supporter.

And they've doubled -- again.

"Just because there are earmarks doesn't mean that it's business as usual," insists Democratic spokesman Jim Berard.

"Meet the new boss," replies Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., one of the most outspoken critics of pork-barrel waste. "Same as the old boss."