Academic

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Retrospective: How Earmarking Went From Stylish To Banned. It may have look?

By Glenn Reynolds

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Retrospective: How Earmarking Went From Stylish To Banned.

It may have looked like boom times for earmarkers in 2006, when they carved out a record $29 billion in projects ? but little did lawmakers realize that a perfect storm of events the year before had set the clock ticking on pork.

What one anti-earmark operative called the ?perfect storm? of runaway spending, lawmaker malfeasance and high-profile bad spending in 2005 set the stage for the slow decline of earmarking, culminating in this year?s moratorium on the practice.

It’s not “mission accomplished” time, because I’m sure they’d like to return to their old wicked ways. But it is a victory.

PorkBusters victory logo by Karl Egenberger, a great designer who also did the original PorkBusters logo. If you’re looking for a designer, send him some work!

UPDATE: GOP Freshmen to Leadership: Business As Usual Is Over.

Related: Freshmen to GOP leadership: We were serious about ?read the bill.?

Plus, no more voting Present: “I mean I knew it was coming up. I could have just said ‘I?m here’ and not hit ‘yay’ or ‘nay.’ But I hit the ‘no.’ The big thing that we have to do is make sure that anything we?re voting for we know darn sure what we?re voting for.”

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on February 10, 2011 (boomark / email).