Pursuit of Earmarks

Democrats in charge of Congress have said they wanted to cut down on the number of narrowly focused projects called earmarks. But they have not cut them out. As a result, interests of all sorts have continued to hire lobbyists in large numbers to obtain them. Few groups are more active in this than states and localities. In the first six months of this year, city and state governments spent about $34 million of their taxpayers' money on lobbying the federal government, putting them on track to exceed the $67 million they spent in 2006. In 2000, they spent just $35 million.