In perhaps a somewhat different category, there is also the implicit “I’ll vote for your pelf if you’ll vote for mine” extortion that goes on in omnibus bills or in the decisions about what makes out of committee in the first place. While compromise and negotiation has a place, it’s hard to see how that kind of bartering results in good collective decision-making. It’s legislative collusion.

As you say, more transparency could help resolve these problems, or at least result in better decision-making processes. For starters, why not create specific metrics for inclusion/exclusion and open up the committee processes to scrutiny?

The ideal would be a process that required each Senator/Representative to vote (even just a simple box-check) on each individual earmark/line item, so that the decision-making process would be more fully democratic and rational. Absent that kind of decision-making transparency and personal accountability, we’ll continue to have omnibus bills that act as trojan horses for corruption and deal-making.