Part of the reason for collecting earmark requests and mapping them is to gather the input of the public. Exposing earmark requests to light will let the public decide what is good government spending and what is not.

More than a few earmarks are getting supportive comments and votes from people who would benefit from the money. Fair enough. Make your case. (Amusingly a commenter called “And I’m Santa C.” thinks that one such earmark is getting astroturf support, not grassroots.)

When I was on their network last week, the folks at Fox Business Network picked an earmark requested by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) to talk about. It was for the WATCH D.O.G.S. (”Dads Of Great Students”) program. Now we’ve heard from someone familiar with that program who doesn’t think very highly of it.

As a Kansas dad who has been in the WatchDOGS program, count me out! I’ve been on the receiving end of their lack of customer service, their delayed shipments and complete lack of support. It is crystal clear to us that NCF only wanted us for our money. We have NOT renewed our program and do not plan to.

That shouldn’t be the last word on this earmark, but it’s great to see people who know something about potential recipients of federal dollars having their say.