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. The secretive, back-room addition of an earmark to legislation at the last minute, without review, in order to reward powerful special interests, campaign contributors, or other politically connected individuals or groups is where the real proble lies. The best way to combat that is through transparency, and because of the efforts of a few individuals and organizations, the information on the size and scope of earmarks has improved considerably. Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), a watchdog group here in Washington, was at the forefront of publishing earmark information. On February 14, 2008, they published a complete database of FY 2008 earmarks, made available on their website for downloading in an excel file. This week, the group Legistorm has joined in the earmarks game as well, with a searchable website that allows users to have better access to peruse the database put together by TCS. They launched the website this week and it builds upon the TCS work to promote better access to earmarking data. And lucky for all of us, the new site and the TCS data includes executive branch earmarks - or those earmarks requested by the president. Most of this data is left out of an earlier attempt at earmark transparency put up by OMB. It looks as though both Legistorm and TCS will continue to have their work cut out for them next year. The House Republican caucus rejected a proposed short-term moritorium on earmark requests today: For the second year in a row, the House GOP caucus Thursday rejected an effort to limit its members' requests for special projects, or earmarks, in this case a short-term moratorium. Check out the new resource and search through tens of billions of dollars in earmarks.