There was a good segment on earmarks recently on Bill Moyers Journal. I found it online here: EXPOSÉ on the JOURNAL: Mr. Heath Goes to Washington http://www.pb

There was a good segment on earmarks recently on Bill Moyers Journal. I found it online here: EXPOSÉ on the JOURNAL: Mr. Heath Goes to Washington http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02222008/watch.html http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02222008/watch.html "The broadcast profiles SEATTLE TIMES reporters on the trail of how members of Congress have awarded federal dollars for questionable purposes to companies in local Congressional districts—often to companies whose executives, employees or PACs have made campaign contributions to their legislators." The show describes the amount of work the reporters had to do just to decode the various earmarks in the DoD appropriations bill. For example, $4m was earmarked for "NG4BW," and the paper had to locate additional documentation--and it's not conveniently attached to the bill--just to determine what this actually represented.