Leave earmarks alone!

So a ban on earmarks doesn’t save one dime. It does, however, do three things: 1) It trashes the Constitution and violates our oath of office; 2) It cedes Congress’s power to authorize and appropriate to the president, and 3) It gives cover to big spending…

To be clear, there are many earmarks that should be defeated. But we should defeat them based on the substance — not because they are earmarks.

Others call earmarks a gateway drug that needs to be eliminated to demonstrate that we are serious about fiscal restraint. There is just one problem with that: It’s not true.

Earmarks have steadily decreased over the past few years, according to the Office of Management and Budget and federal spending watchdog groups.