The Sunlight Foundation unveils its new Exposing Earmarks website today, in conjunction with the Club for Growth, Citizens Against Government Waste, The Heritage Foundation, and many in the blogosphere, including Instapundit, Porkbusters and Human Events Online. The Examiner announces the launch in today's edition:

Congress is considering a bill — the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations measure — that presently contains 1,867 earmarks worth more than a half-billion tax dollars and averaging nearly $268,000 each. Many are for things that sound like worthy causes such as "hospital facilities and equipment," yet none of the sponsoring congressmen put their names on their earmarks.

That's why The Examiner newspapers have joined with the Sunlight Foundation, Porkbusters.org, and Citizens Against Government Waste in posting the database of earmarks in the Labor-HHS appropriations and inviting readers to help identify the congressmen behind each earmark. Organizations like The Heritage Foundation, National Taxpayers Union and Club for Growth blog are linking to the database. The database was obtained from a congressional source and has been checked and double-checked. Congress may still modify the bill, approve it as is or reject it.

I'll be posting more at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog, so keep an eye out there. Let's see how the viral network of the blogosphere can work. Find the most outrageous pork-barrel items in the HHS budget and post them in comments here. I'll put some together and post about them here and at Heritage to keep everyone informed about the ridiculous manner in which Congress spends our money.

One caveat: I already found the three million dollars that went to the Charles B Rangel Center for Public Service. That one's mine. Go find yours now!

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» Here, Piggy! Piggy! from America's North Shore Journal
The Examiner newspapers and the Sunlight Foundation, Porkbusters.org, and Citizens Against Government Waste are laying out the pork in the current appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor and HHS. The pols call them “earmarks” so a... [Read More]

Tracked on August 16, 2006 12:31 PM