Yesterday the Washington Post reported on 520 tax earmarks that were inserted into a bill that passed the Congress on the last day they were in session. I posited that the inclusion of these tax earmarks without a list of members who requested them was in violation of the earmark reform rule that passed the House back in September. It appears that this was not in violation because many of the tax earmarks were proposed as separate bills earlier in the session and were wrapped up into the final bill. Thanks to Bill Allison I was able to track these bills down.

What, you thought that Congress had really frozen out all of its earmarks? The Washington Post reports today that one of the final acts of the 109^th Congress was to pass a tax bill -- the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 -- that included 520 import tariff breaks for select companies. The Post notes, “Corporate lobbyists often craft such suspensions to apply to just one product imported by just one company. Many of those companies and their executives have given millions of dollars to political campaigns.” Of course none of these companies are identified nor do we know who inserted these tax earmarks into the tax bill. All that we have is a very long (and sometimes silly) list that details precisely which items are to be free of import tariffs.