Imagine a place where bank robbery is not a crime. Where people can walk up to teller windows and take money to spend on any outrageous, egregious thing that they want, and no one stops them. That’s the problem that we have with egregious pork barrel spending on Capitol Hill. To 
make matters worse, the only people that can make this form of robbery a crime, are the same people who are robbing the bank!
Well, then imagine that the public, who are the depositors at the bank, are becoming more and more outraged that their savings are being withdrawn "at gunpoint" to be spent on billions of pork-barrel projects. So, these robbers, who happen to be the Board of Directors of the bank, have to do something to try to mollify the concerns of their depositors. So what do they do? You would think that they would simply STOP robbing the people’s bank, and put an end to this terrible self-defeating practice?
No.
Instead, they have engaged in a sidebar discussion that is not about whether we ban this form of robbery, but rather we are now talking about installing more and better surveillance cameras in the bank. Of course it is a good idea to have a great system for understanding how and who are plundering the people’s money, but the debate really misses the point. Having a great surveillance system in place doesn’t really matter as long as robbing the bank isn’t a crime.
I certainly applaud all of those in the U.S. House of Representatives who want to increase transparency in the earmarking/pork barrel system. We featured a column yesterday from U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy and today Republican Leader John Boehner has an extensive column in the Wall Street Journal, all about House Resolution 479 to increase transparency in the pork barrel system (analogous to installing more ‘cameras’ in the bank lobby). But where is the House Resolution, backed by all the Republicans, to implement Congressman John Campbell’s (a true leader in fighting to stop the robbery) objective criteria for all proposed earmarks, so that we can end this wanton looting of American taxpayer dollars to pay for so much egregious pork?
In the case of California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, his personal record of voting against pork (check it out here) is better than most. But when I see some of the worse offenders who were ranked terribly by the Club for Growth in their RePORK Card all rallying behind H.R. 479, I am amazed. It takes a high degree of hubris to for bank robbers to call for more and better cameras in the bank lobby…
I don’t want to dampen the enthusiasm for doing something, anything to make it even slightly more awkward for the "bank robbers" in Congress. But to make the ugly and egregious pork barrel spending process more transparent without, at the same time, decrying the specific egregious spending and condemning all of those who engage in the practice (in many cases, this would mean taking out a mirror), seems like a specious tactic at best.
If earmark reform is truly going to be a clarion call for Republicans, wouldn’t it be more honest to champion transparency AND also admit that the GOP has played too complicit a role in egregious earmarking, and simply STOP it?
Or is the addiction to pork simply too strong? Egregious spending is wrong, whether it is championed by Democrats like Rep. John Murtha or Republicans like California’s own Jerry Lewis.
Care to read comments, or make your own about today’s Daily Commentary?
Just click here to go to the FR Weblog, where this Commentary has its own blog post, and where you can read and make comments.