Over at RedState, a contributor named Blanton has posted a letter from the Senate Appropriations Committee to Republican senators providing instructions on how to submit earmark requests. Blanton writes, “The email reads like a free for all — you want money, just send in how much you want with priority for projects. It’s just about enough to make you vomit that a group of Republican Senators would encourage living so high off the trough.”

I wonder, though, if he’s misinterpreting the letter. Here’s the passage he finds most objectionable: “Please be realistic regarding your project priority list. You should not have 50 project priorities. Remember, these lists will be held confidential by the committee.” Blanton highlights that last sentence.

That passage doesn’t read to me like an encouragement of a free-for-all. It sounds like a request for restraint. What the committee is telling senators is that they don’t have to ask for every project that someone in their state wants. The submissions won’t be made public, so nobody in a senator’s state will be disappointed, or angry, that the senator hasn’t requested an additional project. That’s the only reading of the last sentence that makes sense in the context of the preceding two sentences.

If Blanton objects to this kind of confidentiality, I suppose he (or she) could make an argument for it. But it’s a little odd to get most worked up about one of the features of the appropriations process that keeps the number of earmarks down.