Go straight to the agencies and put pressure on them. The more senior the member of Congress, the better luck you'll have in persuading them to dredgy your district's lake or build a new hospital for vets.
In the New York Times report this morning, most of the perps are Democrats, though not all. Muslim terrorist, Peter King, a Republican who has served in Congress for 10 terms, says that frankly he will do "everything I can to protect my district."
Other lawmakers have been making similar entreaties — to the transportation secretary, for example, to get financing to pay for high-speed rail in their state out of a pool of federal stimulus money.
Congress pledged to usher in a new way of doing business in recent months when it banned earmarks, the widely criticized provisions that lawmakers insert into huge federal budget bills to pay for pet projects back home without much, if any, public oversight.
