Prometheus 6

Because it was a Republican Congress, and the vast majority will have Republican names on them. Which will gather an fired Attorney General-like reaction from those Congressmen that inserted the earmarks at the insistence of the Office of the Executive.

Congress ought to take the same data, add the appropriators' names, and post that publicly.

White House posts earmarks on website
Pet spending projects that lawmakers put in the 2005 budget are listed. The administration's requests aren't.
By Nicole Gaouette and Tom Hamburger
Times Staff Writers
April 5, 2007

WASHINGTON — In a direct challenge to Congress and the way it does business, the White House on Wednesday unveiled an online list of all the pet spending projects lawmakers tucked in the federal budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year.

The Internet database details spending known as earmarks, funds that lawmakers funnel to projects, programs and sometimes even specific recipients without going through the normal budget review — such as the $25 million provided to California spinach farmers in the recent Iraq spending bill.

The amount of earmarked money has tripled in the last decade. And in early January, just as Democrats were taking power, President Bush challenged Congress to halve the number and amount of earmarks, from a record $19 billion in fiscal 2005.

"You didn't vote them into law. I didn't sign them into law. Yet they are treated as if they have the force of law," Bush said in his State of the Union address. "The time has come to end this practice."

The database, which allows the public to search for earmarks by state and by agency but not by name of the sponsoring lawmaker, is the most comprehensive list produced by the government. But Democrats pointed out Wednesday that it did not include the earmarks the president and his administration requested.