While Palin was Mayor of Wasilla, the town paid a lobbying firm $24,000 to $36,000 per year to help secure federal earmarks for the town.

In the 2008 budget year, Palin requested around $255 million in federal earmarks, and her requests for the 2009 budget total $197 million.

The Earmark Transparency Act creates an easily searchable database of all federal earmarks, both authorizing and appropriating.

Authorization to bond for planning money for the project was included in an April 2008 state bond bill, and $25 million in federal earmarks have been obtained.

Private donations paid for $3.5 million of the cost, while federal earmarks contributed another $1.2 million.

Funding for the $10 million renovation came from federal earmarks and grants from state, city, and private organizations.

As for Vandalia, 92 percent of its $31.5 million in grants since 1999 arrived through federal earmarks.

We need to get back to the conservative principles of controlling spending, particularly when it comes to federal earmarks, commonly referred to as "pork barrel" projects.

Holding the latter position has drawn criticism of a conflict of interest of her husband, as he directed over $2 million dollars in federal earmarks between 2001 and the present.

As the Washington Post reported, Silver's efforts in the capital helped Wasilla, a town of sixty-seven hundred residents, secure twenty-seven million dollars in federal earmarks.