Daily Kos: State of the Nation

All we hear about on the main stream media is "pork barrel" and "earmark" spending.  I want to hear about the other 99% of the spending bill.  Quit harping on the insignificant and stupid. 

The facts that you never hear in these reports are as follows:

-- earmarks make up 1% of the total bill

--while there are 9000 earmarks that is down from 13,000 in 2005

--40% of the earmark spending this year is from Republicans.  More top Republicans (McConnell, I'm looking at you) have earmarks than top Democrats

--the president committed to no earmarks a year from now, not this year

--this spending bill is long overdue and is needed to fund government agencies

--while the growth of the bill is 8% from last year, 10% of the bill remained unnecessarily the same to maintain Republican staffing despite Republican losses in the past election