The irony is funny, but the hypocrisy is maddening. Apparently earmarks are bad, but "lettermarking" is great
Like many Republicans, Sen-elect Mark Steven Kirk vigorously opposes earmarks--those "pork-barrel" spending items that are tacked onto legislation in order to direct funds to pet projects in home districts. He isn't, however, adverse to "lettermarking"--a process that allows him to proposition a federal agency to direct funds to pet projects in his home district. What's the difference? That's the question that The New York Times' Ron Nixon floats in a report documenting the alternative methods to supplant the use of the now-"demonized" earmarks.
These tools detailed by Nixon include the aforementioned lettermarking, phonemarking (calling a federal agency to "request financing" for a project), and soft earmarks ("making suggestions" about where money should go). Many of these alternate "marking" efforts have been used by Congressmen who have held up earmarking as a symbol of wasteful federal spending. Naturally--as when a Hotline reporter found that Tea Party legislators had requested over a $1 billion dollars in earmarks--there have been some charges of "hypocrisy" in light of Nixon's report:
The the above link has a good discussion on why earmarks might not be so bad.
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