You Can't Blame Earmarks for Everything

Earmarks this fiscal year: Approximately $18 billion
Budget this fiscal year: $3 Trillion

Penn received 160k from earmarks this year. In 2005, Penn received over $471 million from the National Institutes of Health.

Now if we only get angry about the earmarks as "conservatives" seem to do, then we miss the more important picture. Senator McCain has been calling him self a fiscal conservative and claims he will cut spending. But, earmarks have been his main target.

Right now I am concerned with our $9 trillion debt. Doing away with these annoying earmarks will no hardly put a dent in that number.