Apparently there is a rift between House Members as they wait in line for their swig of the pork barrel earmark trough. Rep. McCaul (R-TX) successfully passed an amendment which didn’t allow any of the money in the recent FAA bill to go towards projects named after sitting Members of Congress (except of course John Murtha). Sounds like a common sense provision right?

Well now McCaul has promised to introduce the amendment to any authorization or appropriation bill that moves in the House this year, and Appropriations Committee Chairmen David Obey (D-WI.) is getting spooked. Obey told Democratic members, behind closed doors, that he was not approving any earmarks that go toward so-called Monuments to Me.

That’s when things got ugly.

Recently, RollCall published an article about Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) confronting Chairman Obey on his strong stance. Waters found the stance unfair because her earmark was named after her prior to her even joining Congress in 1991.

Seriously, only in the U.S. Congress do these people think they are entitled to use your money to enact programs for others and then name it after themselves.

At the moment, Obey is putting his foot down on personal monuments, which were becoming such a trend in Washington that the American public was starting to catch on. The last thing taxpayers want to see, as they are scrape by in these tough times, is the name of a representative slapped on the side of a bridge.

Members on both sides of the aisle and in both houses are guilty of these self-tributes. Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has a golf center and Don Young (R-AK) wants his very own $231 million bridge, Don Young’s Way. Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), however, takes the cake with no less than 30 monuments to himself in his home state.

This is a perfect example of the wasteful earmarking behavior by our federal government and of how little it matters to many Members of Congress. It’s about time that Congress wakes up and realizes that the American people don’t want to see their hard earned money tossed aside in the name of vanity.