Below is another letter that I wrote recently. This time it went to the Billings Gazette.

To the editor:

To justify his "NO" vote on a recent amendment to ban earmarks for one year, Senator Jon Tester issued a press release saying that Montana "can't afford an earmark moratorium."

Can't afford a moratorium? Earmarks are designed specifically to go around budgetary controls that save taxpayers money. These pork projects aren't subjected to congressional hearings, competitive bidding, or even nominal oversight. Worse still, the people of Montana have to help finance all of the pork projects in other states in order to receive them for their state (earmarks like the "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska and the Teapot Museum in North Carolina).

Tester brags about his earmarks, but he's only telling people half of the story. This is despite him saying that, "when it comes to taxpayers knowing how their money is being spent, there is no such thing as too much information.”

The Senator needs to live up to his own words by telling taxpayers the whole story. He needs to tell them that earmarks, by their very definition, are funded outside of the budget process, and are thus, extremely wasteful. If he fails to do that, then he has already turned into the one thing he promised never to be: a Washington Insider.

Andrew Roth
Club for Growth
Washington, D.C.