Pushing Pork, Bashing Bureaucrats

Members of Congress continue to hide behind bureaucrat-bashing as a means of defending the explosion of pork-barrel earmarks. Today's New York Times report on the efforts of Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., this week to eliminate funding for pet projects from two spending bills included some choice quotes:

• Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Ohio: "Who knows the needs of their constituents better, bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., or the people elected to Congress?"
• Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas: Money cut from the bills would simply revert to agencies to be doled out by "career bureaucrats."
• Rep. David Obey, D-Wis.: Legislators should control where the money goes because they know more than "the anonymous bureaucrats downtown."