In the mercenary culture of Washington, discretion is often the better part of valor. There wasn't much of the former when Mark Penn, who at the time was the senior strategist for the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton and also chief executive of P.R. firm Burson-Marsteller, met with representatives of the government of Colombia. They sought passage of a trade deal that Penn's other boss, Clinton, had opposed on the campaign trail. Penn ended up a former top strategist.

Over on Real Time, my colleague Anupama has unearthed a slightly more valorous lobbyist-turned-campaign official. Thomas Loeffler, a former member of Congress, a bundler for President George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, and now co-chair of the McCain campaign, is a registered foreign agent (that is, a lobbyist) for the government of Saudi Arabia. Before joining McCain's campaign, Loeffler and his firm's employees averaged almost ten contacts a month with U.S. government officials (including Sen. McCain) during which they would promote the interests of the Saudi government. Since Loeffler joined McCain's campaign, those contacts have altogether stopped. But the payments from the Saudi government haven't. The Saudis have paid Loeffler's firm $3.5 million, even though it's had just one contact with federal officials since Loeffler joined McCain's campaign.

Running for the White House in 2000, Sen. John McCain described an iron triangle of "special interests, campaign finance and lobbying." And also, "money, lobbyists and legislation." William Safire pointed out the two sets of three corners, but note the one in common: lobbyists. Even those like McCain (and more recently Sen. Barack Obama), who decry their influence seem to end up in the middle of the triangle.

If, like me, you're tired of hearing about landings at Tuzla, sermons from Jeremiah Wright and the other assorted nonsense that candidates for the White House feed us (I don't blame reporters--they have to cover the story put in front of them), here's a pleasant diversion. John O. Fox, who wrote an exhaustive (but not at all exhausting) critique of the federal income tax called If Americans Really Understood the Income Tax, has released his 10 Tax Questions the Candidates Don't Want You to Ask. Each question serves as a primer on federal tax policy, with links to references, data sources, and easy to understand explanations.

Fox asks about the McMansion tax break, why the tax code ensures that the poor get the poorest childcare, and the tax treatment of pensions. He proposes some of his own solutions to the questions he raises -- it would be nice to hear how congressional and presidential candidates would do the same.

He also offers some wonderful quotes on taxes throughout, including this one from former IRS Commissioner Sheldon Cohen: "The tax code,
once you get to know it, embodies all the essence of life: greed, politics, power, goodness, charity." Indeed, and Fox's site proves it.

The House Appropriations Committee has an online interface for members to submit their earmark requests. I haven't been able to find it anywhere on the public portion of the committee's site, but Rep. Peter DeFazio gives us a good idea of what the interface must look like--click here to see what information goes into an earmark request. My favorite bits: "Briefly describe the activity or project for which funding is requested (please keep to 250 words or less, subcommittee online submission will not accept more)" and "Description of project’s legal authorization (e.g. Transportation Bill, Energy Bill, etc.) ... Not all projects are legally authorized and authorization is not a prerequisite for funding."

Yesterday was the deadline for members to submit their fiscal year 2009 earmark requests, and Roll Call reported that...

In a sure sign that earmarks remain as popular as ever, an overload of pork requests clogged the House Appropriations Committee’s Web site Wednesday, forcing an extension to the request deadline to next week.

The cynicism of Rep. Jim Moran appears to be well founded. Instead of a one year moratorium, how about making all those online earmark requests to the Appropriations Committee instantly public?

There's been a whirlwind of earmark activity of late, with the two Democratic presidential candidates joining the all-but-nominated Republican candidate in backing an effort by Sen. Jim DeMint to institute a one-year moratorium on earmarks. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is considering a similar ban, and Rep. Jeff Flake, as anti-earmark as any member of Congress, takes it seriously enough to worry that Democrats will get the credit for ending earmarks rather than Republicans.

Independent bloggers and organizations like Porkbusters, Americans for Prosperity, the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste and of course Taxpayers for Common Sense deserve a tremendous amount of credit for driving this issue so hard and so long.

Taxpayers for Common Sense has released the ultimate compendium of 2008 earmarks available for download, accompanied by an authoritative report on the 110th Congress' earmarking practices and proclivities. I found this bit particularly noteworthy:

Lawmakers in the 73 House districts deemed “competitive” by the Cook Political Report took credit for $1.9 billion in earmarks, an average of $26 million each--about 14 percent higher than the average for non-appropriations committee members. Democrats in competitive races fared much better than their Republican counterparts, averaging $29.4 million to $23.4 million for Republicans.

The Washington Post's take on the study is here, while the New York Times weighs in here, complete with links to congressional earmark request forms. TCS' study won't be the last word on 2008 earmarks, I suspect -- just looking at the list of them, in a file aptly named bigkahuna.xls, raises all kinds of questions -- but it's definitely the can't-do-without research tool for digging into them.

House Republicans have launched a new site aiming at further reforming the earmarking process by suspending earmarks until a joint select committee reports back on the practice (presumably with recommendations on how to reform the system).

Now Rep. Henry Waxman has come out with a strong statement supporting, if not the Republican effort, then most decidedly the sentiments behind it:

After careful consideration I have decided that I will not request funding through the earmark process in the FY 2009 appropriations cycle.

We have a problem in Congress. Congressional spending through earmarks is out of control. ...

Congress needs to find a better balance in this area. Properly targeted earmarks can provide the resources for essential services and needs in all parts of our country. They can also identify the most pressing priorities and bring assistance to those who need it most. But none of us can have confidence that a majority of earmarks are meeting these goals under the current system.

Waxman goes on to suggest suspending all earmarks from the 2009 appropriations, while working with leadership to come up with a better system. The full text of the Republican earmark proposal is here.

Ken Dilanian reports in USAToday that lobbyists are making use of their Capitol Hill-area offices and homes to get cozier than ever with members of Congress:

Despite a strict new ban on gifts to lawmakers, lobbyists routinely use these prime locations to legally wine and dine members of Congress while helping them to raise money, campaign records show. The lawmakers get a venue that is often free or low-cost, a short jaunt from the Capitol. The lobbyists get precious uninterrupted moments with lawmakers — the sort of money-fueled proximity the new lobbying law was designed to curtail. The public seldom learns what happens there because the law doesn't always require fundraising details to be reported.

USAToday includes this nifty map, showing the prime locations.

In tonight's State of the Union address, President George W. Bush reportedly will announce that he will issue an executive order telling federal agencies to ignore earmarks unless they are part of future appropriations bills. Earmarks now are specified in the committee reports that accompany, but are distinct from, the legislation. Here's a bit from a White House flier (attached) announcing the new policy:

The Executive Order will provide that with regard to all future appropriations laws and other legislation enacted into law, executive agencies will not commit, obligate, or expend funds on the basis of earmarks from any non-statutory source, including requests included in congressional committee reports or other congressional documents, or communications from or on behalf of Members of Congress, or any other non-statutory source, except when required by law, or when an agency itself decides that a project or other transaction has merit under statutory criteria or other merit-based decision-making.

That last "or when..." raises one question for federal agency heads: Does the decision to fund each and every earmark in a committee report in order to avoid the wraith of outraged Appropriations Committee members who control your budget fall under statutory criteria or other merit-based decision-making?

Mark Tapscott calls the new policy a "Bush earmark cave-in," while Glenn Reynolds says "it's the right thing to do."

Thanks to Craig Newmark, we now know where two more former staffers of resigned, retired or defeated members of Congress are now. Wayne Palmer, the former chief of staff to Sen. Rick Santorum, now lobbies for Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, while Tim Berry, the former chief of staff for Rep. Tom DeLay lobbies for Time Warner.

We now have four lobbyists verified, only 44 to go!

The Senate Office of Public Records launched an enhanced database for lobbying disclosure on New Year's Eve, one that allows users for the first time to search previously unsearchable fields like "specific lobbying issue." What this means is that you can plug in a bill number -- say S. 681, the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act -- and find out that 19 organizations disclosed lobbying on the bill, including top political donors Citigroup, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, Exxon Mobil and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Perhaps it should be expected that the Swiss Bankers Association also has an interest in the legislation...

Pam Gavin, SOPR's Superintendent of Public Records, says that about 90 percent of the 2007 mid-year lobbying reports are fully searchable, and going forward in 2008, 100 percent of them will be. She also helpfully pointed out that the whole database is now downloadable, year by year--the data is available here.

Note: If you're having trouble seeing the new site, you might want to empty your cache.