…when the chairman of the appropriations committee apparently agrees that earmarks are out of hand:

Winning money for projects back home is the driving passion of many lawmakers and is considered a bipartisan necessity for re-election. And leaders of the House and Senate say it is the right of Congress to direct how federal dollars should be spent.
But even Representative Jerry Lewis, the California Republican who heads the House Appropriations Committee, believes the 35,000 individual spending requests the panel receives each year is evidence that things have gotten out of hand.
“The chairman would agree the process has gotten excessive,” his spokesman, John Scofield, said Tuesday.