Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska): Earmarks In No Need of Reform

Soooo-whee:

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens says there is no need for earmark reform.

What is needed, the senator says, is a better public understanding of how the process works. Stevens made his statements yesterday in reaction to President Bush mentioning earmark reform in his State of the Union speech this week.

Politicians are increasingly demanding changes in the way lawmakers each year add projects to national spending bills to benefit their home states. Stevens has been particularly good at earmarking billions of dollars for Alaska. In his speech, Bush called for a line-item veto to fix the problem. Stevens says it is Congress' job to write the spending bills. He says a line-item veto by the president would be unconstitutional.

Well, this is the benefit to a small state of having two Senators, same as California. All these little states have been the beneficiaries of lots of pork per capita over the years, by virtue of their wildly disproportionate representation in the Senate.

It's time to scale that down, though.

Thanks to super-secret government source Deep Stoat. Although he's not very secret anymore. A lot of bloggers just call him by his name.

I think I'll stick with Deep Stoat. I feel more important that way.

posted by Ace at 08:19 PM

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