Well, there is a lot of information out there if you know where to look. I only scratched the surface, but it sure gave me a lot more than I wanted to know.
A couple good sites to start, if you're curious...
A fact sheet on earmarks and earmarking on the site for Taxpayers for Common Sense. This is an FAQ that lays it all out for you, and tells you probably more than you wanted to know.
For the 2010 fiscal year, lawmakers who sponsored the most earmarks. This is a short page, but summarizes our biggest offenders. Any guess who are the biggest spenders?
This site is very interesting, and you should spend some time here. At the top of the page you can select the subject (Senate or House) to be viewed. Once you have it, the data can be sorted by Name, State, Total Earmarks ($), Total Contributions ($), Contrib Earmark %, Earmark Rank, All Earmarks (in $), All Earmarks (%). This was quite enlightening.
And in case you're wondering...
Which presidency had the most in earmark spending?
It is very difficult to assign earmark spending to certain time periods because of the lack of transparency and oversight. Clearly, earmark spending rose significantly during the tenures of Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush.
The book hasn't been written on this administration yet.
The Fiscal Cliff is just a metaphor, and not a very good one at that. You can read a lot of slanted views and a lot of crap on the subject, but finding out what is exactly going on and how it will affect you is more difficult (I'm still looking). Maybe this will help.
That's about it. Now that I have you wondering, I can go back to bed and try to get a little more sleep.
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