PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Another editorial on pork:

Shedding light on how members of Congress spend taxpayer money is the common-sense aim of earmark reform. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., is advancing that worthy cause again this week by shedding light on how some prominent members of the Senate are blocking the attainment of that goal.

Sen. DeMint has worked long and hard to end the inherently flawed practice of allowing the addition of “earmark” projects to appropriations bills during the conference-committee process. That tactic has long let legislators pile on the pork in virtual anonymity. Ending that shadow spending would reduce waste by increasing scrutiny. It also would reduce the temptation to feather the nests of special interests.

Sen. DeMint and bipartisan partners finally succeeded last month in the push for the Senate to make earmark spending far more transparent, with an ethics bill provision mandating disclosure of which senators back which earmarks — and certification that they have no financial interest in the appropriations.

Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., now insists that the Senate-House conference committee be given a chance to dilute, or even eliminate, that overdue earmark rule as the panel works out differences in the two chambers’ ethics bills. . . .

So why can’t the Democratic leadership, which promised both lobbying and earmark reform while winning control of Congress in last year’s elections, deliver both?

Good question.