Quotes About Earmarks

#1. Look, we know we screwed up when we were in the majority. We fell in love with power. We spent way too much money - especially on earmarks. There was too much corruption when we ran this place. We were guilty. And that's why we lost.

Eric Cantor

#2. Earmarks have become a symbol of a Congress that has broken faith with the people. This earmark ban shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington.

John Boehner

#3. Our legislative victory - an end to earmarks.

Rand Paul

#4. In the world of commercial speech, tobacco advertising bears the earmarks of an endangered species.

Jef I. Richards

#5. Peace is one of the most obvious earmarks of the authority of Christ.

Beth Moore

#6. Earmarks are supposed to be bad. But they don't increase spending.

Todd Tiahrt

#7. During my first term in Congress, I signed a pledge that I will take no more earmarks and I've been faithful to that pledge.

Michele Bachmann

#8. I'd be a lot more excited about eliminating earmarks if we reduced all of the spending by whatever the earmarks used to be, but nobody's, apparently, going to talk about doing that.

Roy Blunt

#9. The earmark favor factory needs to be boarded up and demolished, not turned over to new management that may or may not have a better eye for earmarks with 'merit.'

Tom Coburn

#10. There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.

Eric Hoffer

#11. It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!

William F. Buckley Jr.

#12. I think we ought to ban earmarks. I think we ought to give citizens the opportunity to designate up to 10 percent of their federal income tax toward debt reduction. If we did that, we would reduce our debt by $95 billion a year.

Carly Fiorina

#13. Earmarks are almost always inserted by a member of Congress without any notice to other members, and without a chance for Congress as a whole to debate a particular earmark as they relate to national priorities.

Marsha Blackburn

#14. There's no doubt about it, earmarks are not very popular. There are good earmarks and bad earmarks. The good earmarks are the ones I get for my district.

Anthony Weiner

#15. We were endowed by our Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We were not endowed by the Federal Government. We were not endowed by entitlements. We were not endowed by pork barrel spending; we were not endowed by budgetary earmarks.

Lawrence Kudlow

#16. I think I'm the last Democrat left in the Senate after Russ Feingold was defeated that won't take earmarks.

Claire McCaskill

#17. I will veto every single beer, um, bill with earmarks.

John McCain

#18. I know of three ways to recognize another writer: Writers are shamelessly nosy. Writers tell good stories, even about dumb old, daily things. On most writers, the earmarks of thrift, if not outright povery, are evident.

Joyce Thompson

#19. Finally, in the Mississippi state Senate, earmarks are often hidden in bond bills, which I have voted against many times, because our bonded indebtedness is too high and we simply can't afford it. For example, building museums in the middle of a recession makes little sense.

Chris McDaniel

#20. This had all the earmarks of an SQL-injection attack, and he had a favorite one. In the logon and password boxes he entered: 'or 1=1--

Daniel Suarez

#21. We know that appropriators will fight these cutbacks. But by eliminating earmarks, we can stop the horse trading that grows agency budgets.

Eric Cantor

#22. I've always been interested in past lives, because they're earmarks of what creates us.

Sylvia Browne

#23. Politicians like to confuse congressional spending with earmarks. There is a difference.

Marsha Blackburn

#24. The U.S. Senate does not allow legislative provisions to be included in appropriations bills, for much the same reason that most Americans are concerned about earmarks: it creates a slippery slope by which lobbyists and special interest groups can sneak provisions into large, must-pass legislation.

Ron Wyden

#25. For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life.

Hermann Hesse

#26. I have never been opposed to earmarks.

Judd Gregg

#27. I am convinced that I do not want to give up more power to the White House, whether it's George Bush or Barack Obama. And I'm going to fight as hard as I can against President Obama on these earmarks and my Republican colleagues who hate to vote for them, but love to get them.

Harry Reid

#28. Earmarks do not add spending the budget anymore than choosing to purchase a box of pasta instead of a pound of bananas (i.e., earmarking funds for pasta) adds to one's bill at the supermarket.

Sean Kelly

#29. Never let your inferiors do you a favor - it will be extremely costly.

H.L. Mencken

#30. Some parts of Florida are filled with real magic. You just have to keep your eyes open. Ah, for the mermaids of Weeki Wachee ... Follow me, this way. Everywhere

Neil Gaiman

#31. I have moments where I feel incredibly ugly or fat, and it sucks, you know? I'll usually try to keep a positive attitude because I'm really so grateful for where I am and the life I get to live, but I definitely have to work hard not to feel insecure.

Charlotte McKinney

#32. Sabeth listened when I told her about my experiences, but as one listens to an old man; without interrupting, politely, without believing, without getting excited.

Max Frisch

#33. The Doctor ... told the old ever-new and curious story of the waning of a woman's love, seeking strange, new channels, only to return to its legitimate source after days of fierce unrest.

Kate Chopin

#34. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In

Michelle Alexander

#35. I believe that in spite of the chains we bind ourselves with, there's a primordial section of the human psyche that is still nomadic and still yearns to roam free.

Richard Paul Evans

#36. We used to send up the idea of getting to the top. John would shout, "Where are we going, fellas?" We'd shout back, "To the top, Johnny!

George Harrison

#37. That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.

Blaise Pascal

#38. The government can destroy wealth but it cannot create wealth, which is the product of labor and management working with creation.

Bill Murray