A very nice piece of investigative reporting by Andrew Garber in the Seattle Times yesterday brings to light a real spike in "earmarks" - targeted and generally unscrutinized spending put into the capital budget by state legislators to benefit their districts.
Since 2005, lawmakers have spent or allocated nearly $270 million on earmarks in the capital budget, which funds construction projects. That's more than was spent in the previous 15 years combined.
Tracking this stuff down is a lot of hard work. Congratulations to Garber and the Times for taking the time to get it right. It's well worth reading.
