In Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, Congress spent about $16.5 billion on earmarks. In FY 2009, that amount was $19.6 billion. In FY 2008, that amount was $17.2 billion.

An article appeared in last Thursday’s edition of Great Falls Tribune that sparked my interest. It also gave me a chuckle. The article was written about U.S. Senator Jon Tester and his speech to the Great Falls Area Chamber of Commerce last Wednesday.

Besides wanting to create jobs (you can start any day now) Tester says that earmarks are “poorly understood.”

Poorly understood?

As I have written many times before, Tester is the one that does not understand earmarks or the appropriations process. We all remember that during the campaign of 2006, he said he was against earmarks. Now he’s fighting for them.

The campaign plan for Tester is to move to the center and distance himself from the Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and the Nancy Pelosi regime. Besides that, we’ll see many television spots with the famous Tester tractor in the background…

Whoever runs against Tester in the General Election will have an easy time in developing a campaign plan to not only beat him, but beat him in a landslide. It’s writing itself:

It’s the spending.

It’s creating jobs.

In the Tribune article, Tester basically said that earmarks don’t add money to the budget because the money is already in there. Then he said rural American would be left out if Congress does away with earmarks.

Tester was not singing that tune in 2006. From his 2006 campaign website: “The current federal budget deficit is spiraling out of control, and Congress is recklessly passing on a crushing debt to our children and grandchildren. Tester will fight to restore fiscal responsibility to Washington.”

That was before he arrived in Washington and since his arrival there, spending has gone up by trillions, and putting us around $14 trillion in debt.

It even looks like President Obama is coming around on the problem with earmarks. It’s amazing what getting the crap kicked out of you in an election can do to your views. The Los Angeles Times reported that Obama talked about earmarks during his Saturday radio address:

I agree with those Republican and Democratic members of Congress who’ve recently said that, in these challenging days, we can’t afford what are called ‘earmarks,'” Obama said. “We can’t afford ‘Bridges to Nowhere,’ like the one that was planned a few years back in Alaska.

In 2006, Tester talked about out of control spending and that he would make Washington look a little more like Montana. He thought he was a better choice than a person who had 18 years of seniority in the senate and most of those years were on the Appropriations Committee that controls earmarks.

Tester has failed miserably. His view on earmarks today is 180 degrees from what he ran on in 2006 and now his views are completely opposite of what the American people want.

It’s very easy: Congress must stop the out of control spending and although it will harm many worthwhile projects across the nation, a ban on earmarks is a good start. Cutting the salaries of members of Congress is a good idea, too.

The days of using Federal money to build skate parks, tennis courts, and ports and bridges to nowhere are over (at least for the time-being) until spending and the debt are under control.

It was a lot of fun while it lasted…

The folks who say that cutting spending and saving money on earmarks won’t help, should read this:

Many years ago my father would throw his dimes in an old coffee can. Ten cents here, ten cents there and over a few years it added up to over $500 dollars. Congress should save their dimes. Of course in Congress it’s more than a dime; it’s throwing millions and billions of dollars into a can. The savings will add up just like it did when my father threw his dimes in an old coffee can. But you have to start saving. You have to start now.