It's Your Money

The last election was more than a referendum on the Iraq invasion (I refuse to call it a war). It was also a call for more transparency in government. Now the elections are over and the promises are yesterday's news. CNN has requested from each representative a report of the earmarks that each senator has inserted into various bills. How many have been forthcoming?
Not many.

On Thursday, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, a member of the Illinois delegation, posted his more than 100 earmark requests on his Web site, the first presidential candidate to do so.

And 11 more House members released their earmark requests.

Six members of the House said they had no earmark requests.

Of the remainder, 68 declined to provide CNN with a list, and 315 either didn't respond to requests or said they would get back to us, and didn't. (Find out how your representative responded)

"As long as we are not required to release them, we're not going to," said Dan Turner, an aide to Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Louisiana.

All we want to know is where does our money go. Why is that too much to ask? There is more on the Senate side here. There is also a link to a pdf of how each senator responded. I found the pdf a bit confusing after watching the report on CNN. Russ Feingold is listed as "No Request" as is Jim DeMint but Feingold was one of the 6 who requested no earmarks at all while DeMint told CNN it was illegal for his office to divulge the information.

Sound like it is time for a Freedom of Information Act request.