Skimming Pork

Members of Congress love their earmarks -- to the tune of $20 billion this year, for 11,000 pet projects. Not surprisingly, they want to make sure than the dollars go to the intended recipients of their largesse, and not into agencies' coffers.

The New York Times reports today on how Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., ordered up a Congressional Budget Office study of what he calls "earmark skimming": the practice by some agencies of taking a cut off the top of some earmarks to pay for the cost of administering the funds. He says the government needs a standard for how much of a cut is acceptable.

Right now, the amount agencies take varies widely -- from nothing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to 25 percent at the Defense Department.