House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, must be kidding.

Commenting this week on the movement to find spending cuts in the federal budget to help pay for Hurricane Katrina relief, DeLay said Republicans in Congress have done such a good job at controlling spending that there was no fat left to trim.

"Yes, after 11 years of Republican majority we've pared it down pretty good," is the way DeLay put it.

In light of the recently passed $286 billion transportation spending bill, DeLay is delusional. It has been widely noted since the bill's passage that Congress packed the critical transportation bill with pet spending projects for individual lawmakers. The so-called earmarked spending projects numbered 6,371 and amount to nearly $25 billion of the bill's total spending. The Cato Institute noted the growth of such earmark projects: 10 in 1982, 152 in 1987, 538 in 1991 and 1,850 in 1998. Still, the more than 6,000 pet spending projects in 2005 blew away the previous record.

A few examples of the earmarked projects include a $200 million bridge for an island in Alaska with 50 residents and existing ferry service, $330 million for a bypass in Bakersfield, Calif., an $8 million waterfront walkway in Hoboken, N.J., $6.5 million for a train station restoration in Wilmington, Del., $3 million for dust control on rural roads in Arkansas. The list goes on to include multimillion dollar bike paths, bus stops, parking lots and snowmobile trails.

U.S. Rep. Don Young should give up his $200 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska and redirect the funds to bridges in New Orleans that now actually do go nowhere - thanks to Hurricane Katrina. Other members of Congress should line up behind Young and turn over their own pork-barrel projects for Katrina recovery efforts.

That's certainly a good place to start when Congress begins discussing ways to fund the rebuilding efforts needed in New Orleans the Gulf Coast.

The editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Detroit News and other newspapers have suggested lawmakers in Washington have an opportunity to do the right thing by giving up their pet projects in favor of the obvious need left in the wake of Katrina.

Congress predictably lards just about every must-pass bill with questionable spending on projects that benefit the home districts of selected lawmakers. Spending other people's money, especially when it can help them with the voters back home, is what our lawmakers do best.

David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union, describes federal spending as "spiraling out of control" and says conservatives are losing faith in President George W. Bush and Republican leadership in Congress to advance fiscal conservatism. Offering a more accurate picture of federal spending than DeLay, Keene said "Excluding military and homeland security, American taxpayers have witnessed the largest spending increase under any preceding president and Congress since the Great Depression."

The desperate needs in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region present Congress with the perfect opportunity to do the right thing - to give up pet spending projects and favors to political donors in favor of the greater good and greater need. There is plenty of pork to cut.

The New York Times noted in an editorial that "Hurricane Katrina cries out to Congress for something other than business as usual." The editorial says that Katrina should "inspire members of Congress to sober up and become something approaching responsible policy makers. . . . They should turn in their pork."

Millions of Americans have reached into their own pockets and donated to the hurricane relief effort. Members of Congress should step forward and give up their own questionable, earmarked spending projects.

President Bush should make a public push for such a movement. In doing so, he could bolster his reputation for both conservatism and his compassion.