Here's an interesting article on the mixed blessings of an earmark-free funding year. Congressional Democrats will strip all pet-project "earmarks" from the 2007 federal budget early next year to help pay for the war in Iraq, says U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. But that move will have a downside for Clark County, she said Wednesday. Murray's address to the Vancouver Rotary Club delivered a stiff dose of fiscal reality. The county won't get the $2 million Murray hoped to deliver for the next phase of improvements to the $120 million Salmon Creek-Interstate 5 interchange, an appropriation that would have made the federal government a partner in the project for the first time. This gives us a better -but not definitive- idea of what the full-year CR will look like, and what it's fiscal impact might be. Sounds like $5.5 billion in earmarks will be removed from the remaining appropriations bills. What's more, Murray is framing this as a way to pay for the Iraq war, by which she means the $5.5 billion that the House added to the Defense appropriations bill in September. Democratic leaders in the 110th Congress will have to find $5.5 billion in cuts to avoid running up the deficit in the current budget cycle, she said. Democrats have settled on a strategy of eliminating funding for special earmarks and adopting a continuing resolution to keep the government going for the next nine months at current spending levels, while focusing on crafting their own budget for 2008. And finally, Murray says she supports reforming the earmarking process. Reform of the congressional earmarks process is needed, Murray said. As things stand now, committee chairmen can insert money into the federal budget for their favorite projects at the last minute with no oversight or public notice. Earmarks "need to be transparent," she said. "They must be done in the full committees with public input." The Columbian: "'Earmark' Cuts Will Sting County"