It is one thing for Congress to cut taxes for major manufacturers such as those working in the wine, beer, and liquor industry, but it is another issue altogether to do so by burying the language in little-noticed sections of the highway reauthorization bill. Yet this is exactly what is happening right now and it is only one example of an increasingly opaque system Congress uses to make piecemeal changes to the tax code without debate. Spending earmarks in federal legislation are not uncommon. They have long been a way for members of Congress to fund seemingly random pork projects hidden under the umbrella of otherwise needed legislation. With appropriations bills and other legislation often running thousands of pages in length, members of Congress can include line-items for projects in home districts or states that usually escape the scrutiny of the full Congress. Recent cases of earmarks range from $1.5 million for a Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan, to $4.5 million to renovate a recreation center at St. Bonaventure University. Whether pork-barrel spending is done in an effort to please constituents, better communities and neighborhoods, serve political interests for lawmakers, or pay back a powerful special interest, the lack of transparency and debate surrounding such items is troublesome. Even more dangerous than pork-barrel spending being hidden away in legislation is when tax provisions are tucked deep into bills, especially since these are often long-term, if not permanent changes. Take the afore-mentioned occupational tax on the alcohol industry for example. It is collected from thousands of producers and sellers of distilled spirits, wine and beer, and brought in over $100 million dollars in FY03 and FY04 for the federal government. Last year when the Corporate Tax Bill was approved, it included a short-term tax provision which freed the alcohol industry of all "special occupational taxes," amounting to a tax cut of tens of millions of dollars for the so-called hospitality industry over the next three years. The language for this tax cut was included in a little-noticed section of the bill. Today, the wine and beer lobby has convinced legislators to prioritize a permanent repeal of this tax. In order to expedite passage and reduce any possible criticism, the language was included in the highway reauthorization bill many view as a must-pass bill this year in Congress. As the House and Senate spend most of their time debating over the total level of funding for the bill (the House passed a $284 billion bill, while the Senate passed a $295 billion bill), the small tax provision continues to go mostly unnoticed. This is not an isolated incident. The Senate version of the highway bill also contains a number of other tax cut provisions besides the alcohol occupational tax, including a cap on fishing rod taxes, a ticket tax exemption on sightseeing planes, and repeal of some custom gunsmith's taxes. Regardless of the merits and practicality of these tax changes, tax laws should not be created or reformed under-cover in legislation focusing on other priorities. This is an insider tactic used to reduce dissent by often forcing lawmakers to vote for a bill containing small tax provisions with which they may not ideologically agree, but cannot vote against because of the legislative vehicle being used. Changes to tax laws have a greater long-term impact on the government's ability to meet its obligations than the typical one-year pork-barrel spending project; to hide tax provisions in unrelated legislation only serves to remove transparency and healthy debate from the legislative process and eliminates any comprehensive attempts to federal budgeting.