pork

Pork-barrel spending has been a Washington tradition since, well, since back when people still bought pork products by the barrel. And to prove it, the new Congressional Pig Book is out from Citizens Against Government Waste.

The Alaska bridge project that became the national symbol for pork-barrel spending is finally, definitely dead. But while hundreds of millions have been saved, in one sense the damage has been done.

While both politicians and watchdog groups are more upfront about earmarks than they used to be, there's still about $7.5 billion in Senate earmarks that nobody wants to fess up to, according to this story in The Hill.

The number of “earmarks” – funding for politicians’ pet projects – grew eightfold from 1994 to 2006, with 15,500 earmarks costing $64 billion in 2006.

The White House officially launched its database of congressional earmarks today. Anything that makes the budget process more transparent is a good thing, and this is a worthwhile start. But there are plenty of "buts" and "howevers" attached to the database.