Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 promising to reform the “earmark” process so often blamed for “pork-barrel” spending.

“We will bring transparency and openness to the budget process, and to the use of earmarks,” said Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi in December of 2006.

If transparency and accountability were the goals, the marching orders apparently didn’t filter all the way down to some rank-and-file members of Congress, including our own two U.S. reps, Tom Allen and Mike Michaud, both Democrats.

The Sun Journal asked each of our senators and representatives last week to list the “earmarks” they had attempted to place within the 2008 federal budget.

Allen and Michaud were willing to talk about the earmarks that had been successfully funded, but they refused to disclose all of the projects they apparently felt were worthy of federal funding.

Our two Republican senators meanwhile, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, quickly supplied their joint list.

“Funding requests should be done in the public light,” said Snowe, “so the American people have the opportunity to review what we’re asking for and why we’re asking for it.”

Exactly.

It strikes us brazenly arrogant and undemocratic for any elected representative of the people to do otherwise. Maximizing fiscal transparency should be the goal of every official from the town selectmen to the president of the United States.

Michaud and Allen should take a look at the Web site for SAD 17 in Oxford County, which includes the district’s complete budget in amazing detail.

Or, perhaps, they should attend more town meetings in Maine, where spending warrants are discussed, approved or disapproved in plain daylight.

The 2008 federal spending bill included nearly 9,000 congressional earmarks. In June, only 52 members of Congress would provide complete information about their earmarks to CNN.

It’s interesting to note that Maine’s two senators made 194 earmark requests for the 2008 federal budget bill. Tom Allen submitted 125 earmarks. Mike Michaud’s office, meanwhile, said it made about 500 requests – about 36 percent more requests than the other three offices combined.

In refusing to release all his funding requests, Allen’s spokesman said a “earmark” request rejected by Congress might then be at a disadvantage when seeking other funding.

That’s a thin excuse.

We would remind Congressman Allen that it’s not his money he’s proposing we spend. It’s taxpayer money, and taxpayers deserve to know what the congressman deems worthy of funding.

When congressmen refuse to disclose earmarks, it raises the suspicion that the requests were frivolous to begin with. We wonder in particular how much thoughtful consideration Congressman Michaud gave to his 500 earmark requests before submitting them.

Earmarks are not, of course, all wrong. Most are made for worthy, public-spirited projects.

However, concealing such requests from the taxpaying public is wrong, and it should stop.