The Beginnings of Earmark Transparency

Under reforms announced in March, House members have to publicly declare the earmarks they're requesting from the Appropriations Committee. Most of the requests have now been published and WashingtonWatch.com has assembled a state-by-state catalogue of links to Members' earmark requests.

Getting earmark requests published is progress. Getting them published in uniform, machine-readable formats would allow the public to do really thorough oversight of all the projects that Members of Congress think federal taxpayer dollars should go to.

In December, we had a policy forum called "Just Give Us the Data!" where we explored some of the current issues in government transparency.