Longtime Senate spending leaders departing

The Associated Press, 11/20/8

They are old bulls both, legendary for fiercely lording over the Senate Appropriations Committee and funneling billions to their home states.

But while Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, will no longer be leading the panel, the congressional habit of doling out earmarks is unlikely to change.

If anything, the biggest challenge to “earmarking” money for specific projects — derided as pork by critics and hometown boons by defenders — may come from President-elect Barack Obama. He has said he will pare such expenditures to their 1994 levels, billions below today’s amounts.

There were $8 billion in earmarks in 1994, according to the Citizens group, billions less than lawmakers received this year.