John Campbell: “we already had a debate and discussion about whether there should be earmarks and whether there should not be earmarks.…”

“we already had a debate and discussion about whether there should be earmarks and whether there should not be earmarks. And let me just say that as much as I think there are many inappropriate earmarks, I don't think there have to be no earmarks, but I do think that the process under which we do these earmarks now is still flawed. Now, admittedly, it is frankly, more open than it was last year. But it is still not as transparent and still not as accountable as it should be. And I offered a few suggestions which I will run through quickly, and then I would like to yield to the gentleman from Arizona, as to things that I think we could do in this House in order to make earmarks completely transparent and completely accountable so that this House is not embarrassed by them because, frankly, we have been embarrassed by them in the past, and there are ones I believe that are embarrassing this House that are presently involved in this bill and some other bills and will be in the future. So my suggestions are simple. First, disclose all the earmark requests. Why should we not do that? When we enter a bill, it is disclosed. It is public knowledge that this is something we are trying to make a change on. If any Member wants to spend the taxpayers' money on something and they want to do an official form where they sign that says they have no financial interest, then why shouldn't that be made public? Let's put every earmark in the text of the bill.”