Republicans Love, Love To Hate Earmarks

As a number of congressional Republicans try to use earmarks as an issue to criticize Democrats, the Politico decides they're going to expose the hypocrisy inherent in Republicans' claims.

The two key points in the article: Firstly, Republicans passed substantially more earmarks than Democrats did, and did so consistently. And secondly, a number of Republicans still strongly support the practice, and get substantial benefit out of it.

Earmarks on the whole are a mixed bag — I honestly can't get very excited about either side of the argument. It seems odd to be throwing unrelated items together into one bill; at the same time, the nature of congressional compromise constantly requires that when a legislator is faced with a particular bill that his constituents may not like, that something is added in to benefit them and allow the legislator to support it. I'm not particularly sold either way. But hypocrisy — that gets under my skin. And in Republicans' messaging on earmarks, they're dishing hypocrisy out in droves.