Via Kay Steiger, this McClatchy article detailing the nation's infraastructure woes makes a good point Earmarks get a lot of flack in American politics, but one of the purposes they serve is wresting money for infrastructure repairs in a country that doesn't have a more sensilbe or coherent infrastructure strategy. That's why so many road and highway projects are actually funded as earmarks: They have nowhere else to go. That's why something like the National Infrastructure Bank -- which Chris Dodd and Chuck Hagel introduced, and which Barack Obama supports -- would actually be a more useful, and certainly more sensible, way of addressing "pork." So long as earmarks fill a pressing need in American public policy, they're not going anywhere. But if you can start robbing them of their legitimate side, you can do more to isolate and eliminate the simply wasteful measures they abet.
