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A recent poll NBC / Wall Street Journal poll found an astounding 39 percent of Americans consider appropriation earmarks, or "pork," the most important matter for Congress to address before adjournment -- more important than immigration, tax cuts, and lobbying.

It is obvious that overspending by Congress, stories of relocating a recently rebuilt railroad, erecting an indoor rain forest, providing subsidies for shiitake mushroom research, dog therapy and housing, music education at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, and suchlike have caught the public's attention. They demand change. The president can give it to them.

One of the little secrets in Washington is that the vast majority of earmarks are not included in appropriations bills, but are described in the committee reports that accompany those bills. Since these mandates don't meet the presentment clause of the Constitution, they are not law and can be ignored. What cannot be ignored is the appropriation itself. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act requires the president to spend the money on the account for which it is appropriated, but not on the specific items listed in the committee reports.

In his 1987 State of the Union address, President Reagan held up a copy of the recently approved omnibus appropriations bill, cited a bevy of pork committee reports, and announced, "if you send me another one of these I will not sign it" -- and promptly received a standing ovation from the very people who had sent it to him in the first place. The next day, as the president's budget director, I endeavored to do something about report-mandated pork.

After checking with the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel as well as my own general counsel and being assured a string of court precedents had affirmed report language is not law, I instructed each executive agency head to spend money on the accounts appropriated but to spend it wisely, and in no case spend the money on projects inconsistent with the president's program (read: "ignore the pork").

Then all hell broke loose.