The practice of decorating legislation with billions of dollars in pet projects and federal contracts is thriving on Capitol Hill - despite public outrage that helped flip control of Congress two years ago.The Wilmington Star

Of course it’s still thriving. It doesn’t matter which party Congress flips to if it’s still the same people there plundering our tax dollars to buy votes from lobbyists and special interest groups for their reelection campaigns.

A new earmarking cycle begins this month as the House and Senate Appropriations committees reveal spending bills for the 2009 budget year that starts Oct. 1. The House committee alone has 23,438 earmark requests before it, so many that its Web site for accepting requests froze up, and the deadline for receiving them had to be extended. Lawmakers are unlikely to obtain many earmarks in time for Election Day, but they may tout them in hundreds of press releases anyway.

Defenders of earmarks note that the Founding Fathers explicitly gave Congress control over spending. And earmarks make up less than 2 percent of the annual spending bills passed each year.

Oh, yeah. I’m sure Washington and Jefferson were all about this process when they were risking their lives and personal fortunes on creating an independent nation based on expanded liberty and minimal government. As for that two percent, that could go a long way to helping pay down the national debt.