Our friend Tom Smith has sent a letter to President Trump recommending  ways to change the “culture of spending and borrowing” in Washington. One of his best suggestions is to call an end to Congressional earmarking (when Congress stuffs pork barrel projections into must-pass spending bills).

The letter advises Trump to “announce that as President you will report every remaining earmark to the public until they are eliminated.”

Smith adds these depressing stats:

“The Republican Party has become the Earmark Party. Before the last House was sworn in, Repubs held a secret vote on how to spend taxpayer dollars. The tally to reinstate earmarks among Republicans was 158 to 2. Last year, more than 50 of the largest earmarkers in the House were Republicans. In the Senate, it was 8 out of 12. Several Republican earmarkers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on earmarks.”

That should be an embarrassment to every GOP member of Congress.  The late, great senator from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn put it well when he called earmarks “the gateway drug to massive spending bills..”

Here is a link to the full letter: