Every year, the Washington politicians talk about wasteful earmark reform. Then they turn right around and hand out billions of dollars in ridiculous earmarks. We’ve heard about many of these “projects” – a fruit-fly facility in Hawaii, a tattoo removal program in California, a honey bee lab in Texas.

The politicians talk a good game when it comes to wasteful earmarks, but they don’t do anything to stop them.

It turns out there is a bill gathering dust in a Senate committee that would reform the earmark process and stop wasteful earmark spending once and for all. It’s called the Fiscal Discipline, Earmark Reform, and Accountability Act of 2009 (S. 162). It’s sponsored by a bipartisan group of Senators. And it would reform the way the Senate reviews and approves federal earmarks. Here’s what it would do:

• Allow any Senator to ask for a vote on an individual earmark. To approve the earmark, supporters would need to round up a supermajority of 60 votes. If they can’t get the votes, the Senate would strike the earmark from the bill.

• If an earmark were stricken, its funding stream would also be stricken from the bill. In other words, Senators couldn’t use the then-available funding to pay for any other earmarks or special projects in the same bill.

• It would also require the Senate to post all appropriations conference reports in a searchable format on the Internet at least 48 hours before it voted to approve the report.

• Finally, the bill would mandate that any entity that receives federal earmark funds must disclose any money that it’s spent on registered lobbyists.

The bill is a great idea.

So why won’t the Washington politicians stop talking and just pass it?

When I get to the Senate, that’s exactly what we’re going to do