U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz wants to do something about earmarks, those federally funded projects often denounced as the epitome of pork-barrel spending.

According to an unscientific Herald Poll, most of our readers do too. But what is to be done?

The vast majority of Americans welcome federal spending on what they see as legitimate needs. Even Chaffetz admits there are worthy projects out there in earmark land.

Utah's 3rd District congressman has drafted some criteria for how to distinguish between earmarks and what he calls "congressionally directed spending." How useful are those criteria? Let's look at a few at a few of the lines Chaffetz tries -- rather painfully -- to draw.

Consider one Chaffetz marker: "Sustainable and responsible funding levels must be set, and only the highest priority items within those levels should be funded." What's sustainable and responsible funding? Depends who you ask. And "only the highest priority items ... should be funded." Ay, there's the rub.

Consider Mormon crickets. Sen. John McCain derided earmark requests to fight these pests. Maybe to the Arizonan, controlling crickets just sounded funny. But to Utahns, the insects are a serious matter. According to news stories, Chaffetz has supported funding to control the crickets, especially because they may travel from federal land to private land. After all, with the feds controlling so much Utah real estate, it would be unlikely for any bug to trespass only on private territory.

These are just a couple of many examples of how hard it is to differentiate between worthy projects and boondoggles.

Chaffetz calls for all earmark requests to be properly scrutinized by congressional committees and the appropriate federal agency. A lofty sentiment. But will it be honored? Somehow we don't see a freshman congressman from Utah pushing this through.

We've been treated in recent months to a Congress in which massive spending bills were hurried through before anyone could have studied the hundreds of pages of arcane detail. They've gotten away with it so far, so who's going to make them slow down?

Here's another crucial (if fuzzy) part of the Chaffetz proposal: "It is appropriate for public entities (municipalities, counties, state agencies, and public universities) to seek federal funding for projects where there is a justifiable federal nexus between the requested funds and the proposed project(s)."

The first implication is that funding would go to public agencies or non-profit groups. But such projects are as likely to be boondoggles as any for-profit venture, and maybe more so, considering how governments waste money.

As for a "justifiable federal nexus," or connection, that's a case of locking the barn door after the horse is gone. The federal government has stuck its fingers into so many pies that there's some federal link to almost anything. What's "justifiable"? Depends who you ask.

Even if non-profit organizations get the money, private companies are quick to profit. Funding to build a veterans hospital, for instance, will eventually go to private contractors.

The Chaffetz guidelines call for competitive bidding, but so what? There are ways to "launder" the cash. For instance, take a politician who wants to "thank" construction unions. He sponsors an earmark that provides money for a public road. A private paving company secures the contract and hires union workers.

There are lots of other ways to discreetly funnel money to a favored group.

This is not to say that Chaffetz hasn't raised some useful issues. But earmarks are just one of those things that are hard to define. Trying to define abstract standards in advance is futile. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so is pork-barrel spending. As a judge once said in an obscenity case, "I know it when I see it."

Voters will know it when they see it, too. So Chaffetz is closer to the mark when he writes that "The federal appropriations process must be conducted in an open and transparent fashion, one which restores the American public's confidence in the system."

Transparency is, in fact, the best way to solve this problem, not a rule book.

Members of Congress should be required to post all earmark provisions online -- all together in one database that's easily accessible to the public. It should be searchable by sponsor names, districts and states; by the location of the work; by recipients; and by amounts. This way, voters would really see how their money is being spent.

It's not enough to say that such information is currently available online. A taxpayer must look in many different places to find it. Earmarks should all be gathered together in a single Web site for ease of access.

There may still be some debate about what constitutes an earmark, as opposed to a core provision of a bill. But that should be easily resolved. The main thing is that voters get easy access to spending provisions to allow them to decide for themselves what is legitimate and what is just a call for pigs to feed at the federal trough.

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