There's been a lot of buzz in Washington and around the country the last couple of years about earmarks. It's the new four letter word of politics, with practically every Senator and Representative talking publicly about how awful they are. Yet earmarks in and of themselves are really not the problem. It is the process by which they are enacted that is usually where we run into trouble.

CQ published an infuriating article ($) this morning that explores Sen. Max Baucus' (D-MT) health care reform proposals, with a particular focus on whether those reforms will be implemented in a budget neutral way. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Monday that he hopes to make sure a health care overhaul proposal he released last week is paid for over a 10-year period. But he left open the possibility that it would not comply with pay-as-you-go budget rules over five years, or perhaps at all.

Back in August, I blogged about a report issued by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations about how foreign banks, specifically large European banks, were helping wealthy Americans evade U.S. taxes.