It's not like it's our money anyway

The number of pork earmarks in congressional budgets has almost quadrupled since 1994, when the Republican Party, a.k.a. "the party of fiscal responsibility," took control of Congress. Last year's amount of pork spending was more than seven times the amount of Alabama's entire operating budget.

In a bipartisan trend, none of the nine members of Alabama's congressional delegation wanted to share a complete list of their spending requests with the (Mobile) Press-Register. For example, U.S. Reps. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile, and Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, said they wanted to wait and see how Congress as a whole chose to approach the issue. Neither of the state's Republican U.S. senators was more forthcoming with the information; Jeff Sessions called the requests "private correspondence," while Richard Shelby opted for the term "personal correspondence."