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On earmarks, I'm not specifically opposed to them. That said, I don't think it is a great idea that the same politician that doesn't have time to actually read the full budget he votes for to fund the Department of Transportation somehow thinks he has enough knowledge about the operations to circumvent the project prioritization process.
And, a lot of times, something is passed as an earmark specifically because it is known that it is an idea that would never get funded if actually put through any standard review process.
And a certain amount of horsetrading leeway is needed to grease the wheels of any legislative process.
So I think saying "absolutely any earmark is bad" is just as misguided as saying "there's absolutely nothing wrong with them." And, of course, once you say you won't accept any earmarks then you run into a definitional problem of what exactly is an earmark.
My biggest problem with them historically is how they came to be included in legislation which generally offered no option for true review and frequently you couldn't even tell who had put it in there.
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