Simply Politics & News

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A little background on earmarks:

The congressional year-end budget passed in December 2007 contains nearly 10,000 Congressional earmarks worth $10.4 billion, according to a comprehensive database compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense.[4] In addition, the Department of Defense appropriations bill, passed earlier in the year, contains nearly 2,200 earmarks worth $7.9 billion. The total congressional earmarks for fiscal year 2008 numbered 11,780 worth $18.3 billion. This is a 23% cut in earmarks from the high in FY 2005, but falls well short of the 50% reduction House leadership set as its goal earlier in the year.[5]
Citizens Against Government Waste identified 2,658 of the FY08 earmarks representing $13.2 billion as "Pork Projects", significantly lower than the numbers and dollar amounts of recent prior years: 13,997 "Pork Projects" for a total of $27.3 billion in 2005, and 9,963 projects for a total of $29 billion in 2006.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earmark_(politics)