I think this misses the point. Granted, the total amount of earmarks is chickenfeed compared to the rest of the spending.
But the problem, as I see it, is the way they function politically: they are used to buy votes of senators or representatives who are holding out against a piece of legislation. Hey, we’ll let you put in this or that sweetener for your constituents if you’ll then vote for the bill. The money involved is not that much, but it matters to enough of the congresscritter’s constituents to be worth something to him (politically, next election) and that then moves him to vote for what he otherwise would not have voted for.
Earmarks are a kind of scrip functioning in the congressional “economy.” And they corrupt the process of reaching a decision about whether to vote for this or that legislation.
That, at least, is what I hear DeMint saying. Why Imhofe doesn’t agree, I don’t get.
If they can’t stop spending on “small stuff”, they never will on huge stuff.
If they can’t defund AMTRAK and NPR, they won’t defund anything.