[The Comedian]

Rush is wrong on this one. While Earmarks themselves don’t account for much, the receipt of Earmarks lead to votes for large, unnecessary spending bills. They are bribes. They were responsible for both stimulus and Obamacare. That is more than $11 Trillion over the next 10 years, well more than 1%. Neither bill would have ever passed without the bribes.

You never refuted the original point that earmarks themselves were around only 1% of the budget.

You make a different argument, and I certainly agree with you, but it is a different point.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Soul Seeker]

That’s easy enough to refute.

They do account for a small part of the budget. However, the fact they are so unimportant to the overall budget but clearly despised by the public and yet they can’t summon the will to do away with them gives the public every reason to reasonably project they can’t find the will to impose spending cuts that can slash 10% of the budget or more.

It’s a test of their will to do face the bigger challenges before them.

[wolfman23601]

I didn’t hear Rush say it so I don’t know the context, but what I inferred from the original post was that Rush thinks there is no point in banning Earmarks because they are only 1% of the budget and it won’t serve the purpose of eliminating the deficits. This is the exact same arguement Obama made in the debates with McCain. I wasn’t arguing the direct cost of Earmarks to the budget, I was pointing out the indirect costs, such as Earmarks serving as bribes to get large comprehensive spending bills passed. Again, I did not hear Rush’s argument. If I inferred incorrectly, I apologize.

[MARTIAL MONK]

In an ordinary year earmarks are 1% - 2% of the budget. Since they add to or come out of discretionary spending which is about 1/3 of the budget they eat up 3 - 6% of available funds. Most Congressmen are modest in their requests but ultra liberal and ultra backward states make gluttons of themselves so the balance is skewed to the least responsible states.

We will be targeting earmarkers as if they were Democrats.

There are legitimate ways to fund worthwhile projects. Earmarking is corruption.