Jeff Flake: “let me just close. Let me say, again, I fail to see the relevance of the number of defense contractors that Arizona has…”

“let me just close. Let me say, again, I fail to see the relevance of the number of defense contractors that Arizona has or the amount of Federal money that goes there by contract, by competitive bid or otherwise. How is that relevant to this process? The truth is, there is something wrong with the process when we have thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks, when we have 1,500 and just a couple of days to review them before we come here to the floor. There is something wrong with that process. As I have said before, we can try all we want to conjure up some justification for the contemporary practice of earmarking. But if we think the taxpayers across the country are buying it, we are drinking our own bath water. We are believing our own press releases if we think that's the case, because they're not. They're not believing it, and they shouldn't. There is no noble pedigree to this kind of earmarking. There really isn't. So to appropriate money in this fashion is simply not becoming of this Congress. We are better than that. We should have more respect for the institution than that.”