Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that regularly decries government spending, has released a database of the $15.9 billion in earmarks—those special projects slipped into the budget by legislators without votes—for fiscal year 2010. And the group has tagged the top porkers in the Senate and the House: Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young of Florida. Both are Republicans, and each is the senior GOPer on the defense appropriations subcommittee of his chamber. Cochran cooked up $500 million in bacon, with 242 earmarks; Young, $90.45 million, with 41 earmarks. They really show that the GOP is the party of spending discipline. Will Sen. John McCain send out a tweet denouncing them?
