The Washington Examiner today has a notable editorial about Congress' killing of an amendment sponsored by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn that would require the Defense Department to grade the value of the earmarks that COngress includes in its defense spending bills -- any truly necessary and valuable project would get an "A" and complete pork-barrel boondoggles would get an "F." 

Coburn's amendment was approved with a nearly unanimous vote in the Senate -- 96-1 -- on Aug. 3. But when the final House-Senate conference report was returned to Congress last week, Coburn's common-sense amendment was gone. From the Examiner's editorial:

It is simply amazing that these conferees, all veteran members of Congress, would be so politically tone-deaf to let the Coburn report card be yanked by the conference session. Surely they remember that one now-former member of Congress sits in a federal penitentiary for accepting bribes in return for earmarks via DOD spending. And have they not seen the growing barrage of negative coverage in recent years as Pentagon earmarks have spiraled from 587 worth $4.2 billion in 1994 to 2,847 worth nearly $9.5 billion this year?

Total up the Pentagon earmarks for the past three years and it comes to $27 billion. That’s nearly half the emergency supplemental spending approved earlier this year to help pay for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. It is outrageous that any congressman would think that, instead of spending those tax dollars to support our brave men and women in the battlefield, it’s better to spend it on things like $5 million for mood disorder studies, $10 million to expand Stillwater, Pa.’s waste water treatment facilities or $500,000 to support the Arctic Winter Games in Alaska, just to name a few recent examples.

Just before his colleagues left town last week, Coburn extracted a promise from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., that the DOD report card will be reconsidered when Congress returns for its post-election lame-duck session. That such a promise was necessary is anything but encouraging about the prospects for quickly achieving further progress in shining light on how Congress does business.

All good points - you can read the whole editorial here.  Considering their record over the past few years (not to mention the God-awful past few days), Congressional leaders simply can't afford to continue alienating their base supporters like this. 

Free-market conservatives are justifably upset about Washington's ridiculous overspending, but they're even more upset about being treated like fools who are just going to bite hook, line and sinker anytime Congressional leaders promise that they're getting wasteful spending under control - and then watch them turn around and kill an extremely popular anti-waste measure at the last minute.

Posted by: Ed Frank