Both the Senate and House are talking about “earmark reform,” but then Washington politicos often talk about an issue and even pass “reforms,” but the reality is that nothing much actually changes. The key issue on earmark reform is whether or not all earmarks will be exposed or not. The truth is that most earmarks are not even in a bill but are rather in a committee report about the bill. For example, when the Congressional Research Service looked at current legislation, the division between earmarks in report language and earmarks in actual bill text looked like this: Bill /Earmarks in report/ In bill text Defense /2,801/ 46 Energy/water /2,414/ 22 Science/State/DOJ /2,166/ 28 Treas/Trans/HUD /2,719/ 101 The same proportions were found in Agriculture, Interior and Military construction bills. Interestingly, the Homeland Security bill contained a mere 18 earmarks in the report and only three in the bill text. So, the key to whether Congress is serious about earmark reform or just playing the appearance game of business as usual is how a proposal would change those numbers above.
