PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: John Fund writes:

In the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, It seems everyone has discovered the excesses of pork-barrel spending. Voters may now be disgusted enough to make the political costs to a member seeking pork greater than the benefits.

Read the whole thing. I think he’s right. It’s usually only small sub-constituencies who care about pork. Oldstyle pork-barreling depends on them knowing, and being grateful, while others are oblivious. Sufficient transparency will put an end to that. We’re on the way, but we’re not there yet.

UPDATE: According to his office, Sen. Coburn is going after pork in a big way: “Coburn intends to offer an amendment on every pork project stuffed into appropriations bills this year. There were at least 13,998 earmarked projects contained in last year’s appropriations bills. By way of comparison, the Senate had only 366 roll call votes last year. Needless to say we are beefing up our appropriations staff for this challenge and we have requested that we be given at least 72 hours to review appropriations bills before they are considered.”