In 2008 spending bills, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, there were 11,145 earmarks, which added up to $15.3 billion. However, total federal spending for 2008 was $2.9 trillion, which makes earmarks a measly one half of one percent of the federal budget. In other words, eliminating earmarks isn't an instant fix to the many issues -- from foreclosure to health care costs to the rising costs of transportation -- that are facing this country today. I think that this blogger, writing about a Center for American Progress Action Fund event, said it best:

Gene [Sperling] likened McCain's opposition to earmarks to a guy who buys three Hummers on credit and is making car payments of $10,000 a month, showing up at his house and saying, "I have to stop spending so much money on gourmet peanut butter!"

And obviously, some of those 11,145 earmarks are an example of where we're paying for gourmet peanut butter when we really should have been using Skippy or Jif. Does Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Robert Byrd really need at least eight bridges, buildings, and roads named after him in West Virginia? And was it really necessary for Senator Mitch McConnel to build the McConnel Technology Training Center in his state at a cost of $3.2 million dollars? But despite the inappropriate, and sometimes silly (yes, we all remember Hillary Clinton's Woodstock Museum) earmarks, this kind of discretionary spending has a set purpose. Earmarks give Congress a say in the White House's fiscal priorities and distribute spending between the Executive and Legislative branches. Clearly, earmarks need to be reformed and the system needs transparency, but eliminating this funding process isn't the way to do it.

As David Sirota wrote on earmark reform:

Think about what a congressional earmark is: it's a line in a big spending bill, inserted by a member of Congress, to direct federal funds to a specific project. If you outlaw earmarking, as many of these earmark "reformers" like Coburn seem to desire, you delegate the responsibility of directing that spending to the executive branch. And that begs the question: why is it better for unelected appointees in the executive branch to decide how federal money is spend than having your elected officials decide? It isn't - and that's the part of the story that's not being discussed. Earmark "reform," if done overzealously, is just one huge power grab by the executive branch over the last true power that Congress still retains: the power of the purse.

So an ideal reform, perhaps, would be not to eliminate earmarks, but to require that the sponsors of every earmark be disclosed to those both inside and outside the government. This would allow outside watchdog groups and the media to keep an eye on earmarks and also discourage members of Congress from giving kickbacks to special interest groups. However, would McCain approve of this new transparent earmark system? It'd be a bit harder to make a video game out of that one...