more on earmarks and their role in the ever growing deficit

Here are a few great ideas to reduce the amount of specially marked public dollars that get inserted into bills racheting up the debt. This is irrespective of the 3 trillion missing from the Pentagon.
part 1

part 2

I'm especially in favor of the notion of a " 72 hour cooling period" where spending bills be placed online for citizen review and reaction before the actual vote. I know this is pie in the sky, but wouldn't it be nice if we the people were just made aware of the debt that we are passing on to our kids. Now Kesselman, shines a bright light on the local and state govt supported lobyists that get us Yarn museums and and questionable studies( like Mu getting 1.6 million for a shitake mushroom study. And while I'm grateful for the info, she seems to gloss right over the Abramoff type of lobyists.

$2,300,000,000,000.00

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.