But they also represent a culture of waste, and, even more importantly, they open the door to all sorts of spending shenanigans, in which legislators reward friendlies with giant taxpayer sponsored windfalls. The thing that concerns me as much or more than the spending is the soft corruption to which earmarking leads. Earmarks make political handouts far too easy.

Absolutely! This earmark pledge is good because it’s a simple and effective way to draw attention to what you rightly call the “culture of waste.” Here’s an action item suggestion. You have a lot of members. Send them some phone numbers! Have your local chapters start calling their reps, ask them if they’re signing the pledge, and if not, find out why. Then start publishing responses here. Do some calls yourself and tell us what the reps say. You could do like a weekly update, even have an earmarks “page” where you list everyone by state and their positions.