Originally Posted by Seaver

Earmarks are NOT parks and services. Those can be voted on and justified on their own grounds.

Earmarks are the $50million dollars in pig subsidies or the preverbial bridge to no-where which get attached to Armor for Troops bills.

If you vote against the earmark you're forced into opposing armor protection for troops, so you oppose the troops and want them to die (which will be stated in the next election cycle).

If the funding for local projects deserves to be passed then it can be debated and voted on in separate terms like the founding fathers intended... not spit-stuck like a post-it note on the Mona Lisa.