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July 19, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Porkbusters On Patrol
The Porkbusters are on patrol again this week, both in Congress and in the blogosphere.
Blogger Mark Tapscott, whose full-time job is editorial-page editor of The Washington Examiner, was briefly in the congressional spotlight yesterday as he testified before a Senate subcommittee in favor of a bill to create a database on earmarked spending initiatives. He posted his testimony at Tapscott's Copy Desk.
"If the database allows users to search and filter spending information at such elementary levels as by state and by category of activity, every reporter covering basic beats like schools, crime, the environment and transportation will incorporate information from the database in their stories on a regular basis," Tapscott said. "With so much more information available about federal spending on these beats, there will soon be more reporting on the effectiveness of federal programs."
Citing the Porkbusters effort as "a glimpse of things to come," he added that the database could lead to even greater reporting at the citizen level. "I have no doubt there will be many, perhaps hundreds, of blogs created specifically to analyze and track federal spending within specific issue areas and industries. These blogs will be associated with private citizens, nonprofit advocacy groups and even consultants and executives with companies bidding for federal contracts."
Captain's Quarters covered the hearing remotely as it happened.
The topic of pork-barrel spending also was addressed in the editorial section that Tapscott runs at the Examiner. Mary Katharine Ham, a member of the "blog board of contributors" recently appointed by Tapscott to provide commentary from the blogosphere, asked and answered the question, "Why a war on pork?"
The subject also came up on the House floor this week, as lawmakers approved a bill to provide $1.5 billion for the Metro transit system in the Washington area. The Club For Growth dubbed the planned subsidy one of the largest-ever spending earmarks and made it a "key vote" for grading the fiscal conservatism of members of Congress.
"It is high time that this mature transit system has the incentive to be self-sufficient or be funded by local taxpayers who rely on the service, rather than once again relying on taxpayers from across the country to bail it out," club blogger Andy Roth wrote.
RedState also rallied against the bill, but the lobbying and the threat of a bad grade for supporting the bill did not convince enough lawmakers. The House passed the measure by a vote of 242-120.
Posted by Danny | 07:26 AM
