Kirk strong ally of earmark reform

The Associated Press recently released a shocking, but sadly not surprising, report on the state of earmark reform.

The quick answer is there isn't any. By some measures, pork barrel spending is actually getting worse.

The Democrats were swept into power in 2006 largely due to promises to curb earmark spending. They have not kept that promise.

Recently the House of Representatives Web site set up to accept earmark submissions crashed due to the number of requests. Once the deadline passed 23,428 individual earmark requests had been submitted.

I am not writing this letter to bash the Democrats. After all, the Republicans were no better and that's why they lost control of Congress.

The lesson I draw from this report is that if you rely on either party to enact spending reform, you will be disappointed.

What Congress needs is more independent reformers like Congressman Mark Kirk.

He led the charge to abolish the $300 million bridge to nowhere and is the first member of the appropriations committee to swear off earmarks.

If we ever want to get rid of government waste and pork barrel spending, we need to keep sending strong, independent reformers like Kirk to Washington.

Greg Jones

Evanston