From the Nation:

By John Nichols

In a Congress where it has become fashionable to gripe about earmarks of a few hundred thousand dollars to pay for small-town museums and urban parks - and, until last week, for construction and repair of bridges - the most expensive waste and corruption is always contained in the annual Department of Defense appropriation. Nowhere in the whole of the budgetary blueprint for allocating tax dollars could a serious observer of federal programs find more bloat, inefficiency, hidden excess and overt overspending that in the Defense plan.

Yet, while members in both parties preach from their bully pulpits about the need to do away with earmarks, the House with virtually no debate on Sunday approved $459.6 billion in new money for the Pentagon. You want earmarks? “This bill has more than 1,300 earmarks. The notion that these had proper review is simply not reasonable,” said Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who gave a good speech but still joined the overwhelming majority of House members in voting for every one of those earmarks - and the rest of the $459.6 billion in spending.

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