Radley Balko is right.

In his recent Fox News article, he laments the departure from the U.S. Senate of Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill). Apparently, Fitzgerald has been punished by his party leadership for committing the sin of refusing to go along with the standard behavior of trying to bring as much pork-barrel spending as possible back to his home state.

It’s understandable, but wrong, for representatives to reason that as long as others are doing it they should try to get as much for their own districts as possible. But, in order for things to improve, we need principled politicians to go against the grain and refuse to participate in wasteful spending. Eventually, this might become recognized as good behavior and those who continued to try to fleece the nation’s taxpayers for their own districts’ sake (really, their own sake) would be ridiculed.

A good party would support someone like Fitzgerald and promote progress. The Republican party doesn’t.