Republican Party, earmarks, YouCut, spending, deficit, budget,

Republican Party, earmarks, YouCut, spending, deficit, budget,:

In the 2011 homeland security spending bill, there is exactly one Republican earmark and seemingly in response, Democrat earmarks dropped dramatically as well.

“‘Essentially, the vacuum that was created by virtually no Republican earmarks wasn't backfilled by more Democratic earmarks, and in fact, Democrats actually took less than they did last year,’ said Steve Ellis, vice president at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. ‘There is a fear of overstepping the earmarking bounds, and also a commitment to at least further whittling away at earmark levels.’”"