Putting earmarks in perspective

The McCain campaign is trying to minimize Palin’s earmark excesses by selective bookkeeping, offering just the raw numbers without weighting results by population. In classic GOP doublespeak, “John McCain touts his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, as a force in his battle against earmarks and entrenched power brokers.” But KXMC.com does the math for us.

"Under her [Palin's] leadership, Alaska has asked the federal government for almost $300 per person in requests for pet projects this year. That's more than any other state received, per person, from Congress and runs counter to the image the GOP ticket is pushing.

Obama hasn't asked for any earmarks this year. Last year he requested 311 million dollars roughly $24 worth for every Illinoisan."

In other words, when you tally up the totals, the GOP are still the kings of pork, and Sarah Palin is apparently their earmark queen.