On March 13, at 10:25 p.m., the Senate voted to establish an
earmark moratorium for fiscal years 2009. By a margin of 71-29,
the vote failed.

Following the vote, 71 Senators--mostly pork-loving
democrats along with 26 Republicans took the fast train out of
town to begin their Easter Recess.

Here are the Senate Republicans--along with their shocking
"Pork totals" for the year and their phone numbers:

Bennett (R-UT)            $296.1 million        202/224-5444
         Bond (R-MO)        $529.9 million        202/224-5721
         Brownback (R-KS)    $365.6 million        202/224-6521
         Bunning (R-KY)        $23.7 million         202/224-4343
         Cochran (R-MS)        $977.7 million        202/224-5054
         Coleman (R-MN)        $231.9 million        202/224-5641
         Collins (R-ME)        $137.8 million        202/224-2523
         Craig (R-ID)        $150.2 million        202/224-2752
         Crapo (R-ID)        $150.5 million        202/224-6142
         Domenici (R-NM)    $600.0 million        202/224-6621
         Gregg (R-NH)        $93.9 million         202/224-3324
         Hagel (R-NE)        $102.0 million        202/224-4224
         Hatch (R-UT)        $241.7 million        202/224-5251
         Hutchison (R-TX)    $839.2 million        202/224-5922
         Lugar (R-IN)        $146.4 million        202/224-4814
         Murkowski (R-AK)    $63.8 million         202/224-6665
         Roberts (R-KS)        $333.0 million        202/224-4774
         Shelby (R-AL)        $635.1 million        202/224-5744
         Smith (R-OR)        $273.0 million        202/224-3753
         Snowe (R-ME)        $126.5 million        202/224-5344
         Specter (R-PA)        $404.4 million        202/224-4254
         Stevens (R-AK)        $524.5 million        202/224-3004
         Vitter (R-LA)        $386.8 million        202/224-4623
         Voinovich (R-OH)    $170.6 million        202/224-3353
         Warner (R-VA)        $702.2 million        202/224-2023
         Wicker (R-MS)        (totals unavailable)  202/224-6253

[URL=note:]NOTE:
Statistics provided by http://www.taxpayer.net [/URL]

Following the vote, Sen. DeMint remarked, "Tonight, too many in Congress
embraced the earmark favor factory and proved why we have the lowest
approval rating in history...

Sen. McCain, who canceled appearances to make certain he was present
for the vote added, "We're disappointed that only 29 members of the
U.S. Senate understand that the American people want us to stop this
practice, which has led to corruption."

This would be funny if it weren't so depressing.

I wonder if we could get a Constitutional Amendment that bans pork, AND terminates ALL current Senators & Congressmen, so we could start over. Oh, & we could lower their salaries to, say, 10K per year.

What did you expect? This how "they" get to keep control and stay in office long after the rest of us are tired of "them".