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Earmarks are almost always inserted by a member of Congress without any notice to other members, and without a chance for Congress as a whole to debate a particular earmark as they relate to national priorities.

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.

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.

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.

I will be the president of the nation who keeps pledges.

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.

I have never been opposed to earmarks.

And on this you have my pledge - unlike in the past, when you stood up and did what was right, this governor will not pull the rug out from underneath you - I will sign strong reform bills.

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.