I don’t consider myself knowledgeable enough about the Monroe County budget to speak to whether there’s any fat that could be trimmed. But when it comes to the national budget, clearly some spending decisions are driven by politicians’ craven attempts to score easy points with their constituents, regardless of whether that spending is good for the nation as a whole. That’s why it’s nice to see that pressure on Congress to reduce porkbarrel spending seems to be working. According to figures published by blogger N.Z. Bear, FY ’07 earmark requests are down 37 percent.

That is very good news.

Locally, perhaps the answer is something along the lines of what Michael Caputo suggests in one of his recent series of stories on the proposed county sales tax hike:

The dire choices presented by Brooks had she opted to cut services. She told the assembled in the County Office Building last Thursday that to cut the programs necessary to balance the books would have been… well, draconian. She talked about ending the road patrol service. She talked about closing the zoo… closing the parks . . .

This is as if she couldn’t scale back on some or all of these programs. Why end them? Why give us the all or nothing scenario? That is, of course, about making a point using drastic means.

Whatever the specific answer, the real takeaway is that if the politicians know people are paying attention, their behavior changes. We have to show them we expect them to act responsibly — that we haven’t forgotten it’s our money they’re spending.

Think about this, the next time a local pol wants to build a parking garage that’s only supposed to last 30 years.