Last week, two GOP appropriators broke Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment and launched a serious attack on a fellow Republican. After Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a second-term conservative from Dallas, used a procedural objection to remove $500 million from an appropriations bill, Rep. Ray LaHood, a Republican appropriator from Illinois, said, “Please do not tell us you support the troops. Please do not tell us you support the war, when you came out here and X’d out all of these important projects that help our troops, that help us win the war.” And Rep. Jim Walsh, the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that wrote the bill, said of Hensarling, “He does not understand that we are at war.”

What projects could be so vital to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that, by objecting to them, Hensarling invited members of his own party to publicly question his commitment to and understanding of the war effort?

Unraveling this mystery requires a short history lesson. Since the war began, the Bush administration has funded almost all of it through “emergency supplementals” — spending bills that are not accounted for in the federal budget. Instead, the Appropriations Committee authorizes this spending whenever the president requests more money for the war. The problem, as fiscal conservatives pointed out, is that the urgency of supplying our troops makes these “must-pass” bills — and as such, members load them up with earmarks for pork projects. Because they are not included in the budget, the only ceiling on these bills is the one the administration sets — and we all know how many times Bush has used his veto power to enforce such a ceiling: zero.

This year, fiscal conservatives in the House set out to curb such abuses by reforming the budget process. They pushed for a budget resolution that included a “rainy-day fund” for emergencies (emergency spending in excess of the budgeted amount would have to go to the House Budget Committee for a vote). Republican appropriators objected, because they did not want to share their emergency spending power with the budgeters. Nevertheless, conservatives prevailed with the backing of the House leadership, and the FY07 Budget Resolution created a $50 billion fund as a down payment on future war supplementals.

Less than 48 hours after the passage of the budget resolution, appropriators started dipping their hands into the new fund. The FY07 Military Quality of Life Appropriations Bill included 66 earmarks (projects that the administration did not request), which put the bill approximately $500 million over the budget’s $95 billion cap. These earmarks included $8 million for a physical-fitness facility at Fort Bliss, Texas, and $4 million for a kennel at Whitman Air Force Base, Missouri.

Instead of cutting spending, the appropriators tried to bring the bill back under the cap by funding part of it out of the emergency fund for future war supplementals. They found 20 projects totaling $500 million that the administration did request and decided to try to pass these off as “emergency” spending. These projects included $18 million for bachelor enlisted quarters at Camp Pendleton, California, and $10 million for a vehicle-maintenance shop at Fort Campbell, Kentucky–worthier, probably, than the gym and the kennel, but hardly emergencies related to the global war on terror.

When House conservatives discovered this budgetary prestidigitation, they determined not to let the appropriators raid the fund for which they fought so hard–especially not two days after its creation. Hensarling, a leading member of the conservative Republican Study Committee, raised points of order to remove the $500 million, and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert backed him up. As a result, the 20 projects were stripped out of the bill before it passed the House last Friday.

That’s what led his fellow Republicans to question his commitment to the war.

When asked about their comments, Hensarling told National Review Online, “I’m certainly disappointed by what was said. I view this as a very simple point. It just so happens that at the end of the day, they were taking money from the war reserve fund and using it to fund ordinary military construction projects, and when the dust settled we were able to return it.”

“I think there are good earmarks, but I think it’s led to a culture of spending that’s gotten out of control,” Hensarling says. “And every time they choose to fund the hydroponic tomato program, the World Toilet Summit, or dairy education, they could have used that money to fund bachelor officer quarters in Kansas.”

Regarding the specific charge that he “does not understand that we are at war,” Hensarling replies, “I take the war on terror very seriously. It’s the biggest threat to my country and my children’s future. But the second biggest threat is government spending that’s out of control. We’re on track to double taxes on my children, and that’s unconscionable. At some point we’re going to have to say no to the current generation, or my children won’t have a choice. If we don’t control runaway spending, it will be a threat to our national security. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but further on down the line it will be.”

A few days after members of his own party took to the floor of the House to question Hensarling’s commitment to the war, conservatives made the news again–this time over earmarks in the appropriations bill for agriculture. Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, another conservative stalwart, tried unsuccessfully to strip millions of dollars worth of farm subsidies out of the bill. “I offered eight amendments and every single one got voted down,” he says.

After the defeat, Flake told the New York Times, “We have one of our former members in jail right now for basically selling earmarks” — referring to disgraced former member Randy “Duke” Cunningham. “He was able to get his earmarks through the legislative process without being challenged. Jack Abramoff reportedly referred to the Appropriations Committee as an ‘earmark favor factory.’”

In response to these comments, the earmarks’ defenders told the Times that Flake’s comments were out of line:

[Rep. Henry] Bonilla [a Texas Republican] said it was “really bad form” for Mr. Flake to mention the scandals on the House floor.

Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, agreed that “the number of earmarks has gotten grotesquely out of hand.” But he added, “I don’t think that we need to drag in a reference to an obscene player in the game like Mr. Abramoff.”

Question a principled Republican’s commitment to our troops. Tell his constituents he’s undermining the war on terror. Accuse him of not understanding the intricacies of funding the war effort. All that gets a pass.

But suggest that members–spending as freely as ever–should consider changing their behavior to avoid the kinds of scandals that have driven congressional approval ratings into the 20s?

Please. Have some decency.

— Stephen Spruiell reports on the media for National Review Online’s Media Blog.