April 14, 2009 8:38AM 

# The Beginnings of Earmark Transparency 

By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) 

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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 Wash​ing​ton​Watch​.com has assembled a state-by-state [catalogue of links to Members’ earmark requests](http://www.washingtonwatch.com/blog/2009/04/12/catalogue-of-fy-2010-earmarks/).

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!](https://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=5475)” where we explored some of the current issues in government transparency.

##### Related Tags 

[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy) 

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