The problem with earmarks, as with most tools of governance, isn't their existence but their abuse. Reforms introduced in 2007 helped, but much more extensive disclosure is needed to clean up the earmark process.

Earmarks serve a purpose. The cold truth is that members of Congress who represent the 48 states that aren't Missouri or Illinois don't have the time, interest or expertise to determine if federal dollars should help pay for a new furnace at a south St. Louis community center, to expand a West County food bank or to build a new bridge over the Mississippi River at the northern edge of downtown St. Louis.

But former Sen. Christopher S. "Kit" Bond, a Missouri Republican, and soon-to-be-former Rep. Jerry Costello, a Belleville Democrat, had a great deal of interest and expertise about our region's need for a Mississippi River bridge, and they knew that it could never get built without federal funds.

So Mr. Bond and Mr. Costello deftly played the earmark game, which basically involves shortcutting the cumbersome budgeting process of the executive branch and directing chunks of funds in broad spending bills to specific projects in legislators' home states and districts. The bridge project got federal money at key points in its development and now is becoming reality.

 

If that's a positive example of earmarks serving the public interest, there is no denying that there has been, is and could continue to be plenty of abuse of the process. It is basically a favor-trading, clout-flexing exercise that used to take place entirely in secret, which allowed legislators skilled in the dark arts of earmarks to pay back campaign contributors and to enrich themselves.

Reforms in 2007 required members to attach their names to earmark requests and to attest that neither they nor members of their immediate families would benefit directly from the federal funds. But abuses continued, as the notorious "bridge to nowhere" project in Alaska dramatized.

In 2010, Congress adopted a two-year moratorium on earmarking, but the staff of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., had no difficulty compiling a report last year showing that earmarks still were being inserted into spending bills by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Last week, the Senate soundly defeated an amendment offered by Ms. McCaskill and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., to outlaw earmarks entirely, but they have vowed to reintroduce it. A similarly bipartisan initiative in the House is being sponsored by Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn.

The effort got a bit of a push last week with publication of an investigative report into earmarking by The Washington Post. Notwithstanding the amount of research and sleuthing required, however, the stories discovered no fire and little smoke but some appearances of possible conflict of interest.

 

Among the 50 or so congressmen featured in the series was Rep. Todd Akin, R-Wildwood. He and others helped secure $3.3 million in federal funds for the long-planned northward extension of Highway 141 in St. Louis County. Mr. Akin's family owns nine acres of property near the highway. However, it seems far-fetched, at best, to suggest that's why he helped get the money.

Nevertheless, Congress should institute new rules requiring members requesting earmarks to disclose the specific location of property they own and any potential family connections to the use of the money. If there's nothing to hide, there's no reason to hide it.