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I'd be a lot more excited about eliminating earmarks if we reduced all of the spending by whatever the earmarks used to be, but nobody's, apparently, going to talk about doing that.

I think we ought to ban earmarks. I think we ought to give citizens the opportunity to designate up to 10 percent of their federal income tax toward debt reduction. If we did that, we would reduce our debt by $95 billion a year.

Earmarks have become a symbol of a Congress that has broken faith with the people. This earmark ban shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington.

The earmark favor factory needs to be boarded up and demolished, not turned over to new management that may or may not have a better eye for earmarks with 'merit.'

We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.

The responsible use of earmarks can have public benefits.

If you look at history we've had since I've been in office, in an environment where we haven't had earmarks, we've still been able to get tens of millions of dollars for McLennan County.

When you have to earmark human and monetary resources for such a long time, it starts to hinder your other activities.

House and Senate Republicans are now united in adopting earmark bans. We hope President Obama will follow through on his support for an earmark ban by pressing Democratic leaders to join House and Senate Republicans in taking this critical step to restore public trust.

Politicians like to confuse congressional spending with earmarks. There is a difference.