Congress will soon deal with an emergency spending bill that would appropriate money for the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. But will politicians also lard up the measure with wasteful pork?

The issue of "earmarking" -- in which senators or representatives add projects subjected to little or no scrutiny to spending bills at the last second -- has been in the news for the past few months thanks to the Jack Abramoff lobbying and corruption scandal. But while at least one bill is pending that would give lawmakers more opportunity to challenge such requests, the oink fest continues inside the beltway.

For instance, the "emergency" spending legislation includes $700 million to move railroad tracks in Mississippi, home to two influential Republican senators. Others fear Democrats will seek plenty of last-minute add-ons to pay for veteran heath care or border projects, the Los Angeles Times reported.

While members of both parties wring their hands and denounce pork, it's usually all for show. "Breaking the bank has become one of the last bastions of bipartisanship," Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense told the Times.

For years, lawmakers adhered to an unwritten rule that kept them from challenging wasteful projects in other states or districts -- cultivating political enemies, after all, makes it difficult to "get things done." But over the past few decades, a handful of Republicans eager to prove their commitment to fiscal responsibility have more aggressively highlighted spending abuses.

There have been minor successes. Last year's debate about a multimillion-dollar "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska -- a project pushed by Alaska Republican Ted Stevens -- resulted in enough bad press that Congress scrapped the plan, although the money was simply diverted to other Alaska interests.

For years, the point man in the battle against pork was Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. But he has been joined of late by Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, in the crusade to target wasteful and unnecessary spending. And Sen. Coburn and a few other Republicans -- including Nevada's John Ensign -- plan to challenge some of the pork sure to be included in the upcoming emergency spending plan.

The debate will prove to be a "key test of whether Congress is in the mood to crack down on approving tax dollars for such projects [as the Mississippi railroad deal] amid steep federal budget deficits," the Times reports.

The House has already approved the $91 billion appropriations measure, which was close to what the White House requested. But the Senate proposal would shamefully add more than $14 billion on top. If Republicans hope to have any credibility when it comes to convincing voters that they are the best stewards of our tax money, they should rush to line up behind Sens. Coburn, McCain and Ensign and start screaming from the mountaintops about these fiscal indiscretions.