CHARLESTON, W.Va. - So-called "earmarks" - federal budget items designated by Congress members to help their districts - typically provide money to build roads, improve universities, expand medical centers, construct federal office buildings outside of Washington, etc. Local residents usually think the projects are worthwhile.

While mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, from 1996 to 2002, Sarah Palin hired a Republican lobbying firm in Washington to help get her 6,700-resident town $26.9 million in federal earmarks. U.S. tax dollars funded a youth shelter, mental health center, transportation hub, rail project and sewer repairs.

Palin got those boons for Wasilla while Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee. (Today, Stevens is facing trial for accepting $250,000 in unreported personal gifts.)

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told The Washington Post that Palin "certainly wasn't shy about putting the old-boy network to use to bring home millions of dollars. She's a little more savvy to the ways of Washington than she's let on."

After she was elected governor of Alaska in 2006, Palin initially backed plans to build the $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere." She subsequently worked to cancel that questionable project.

Just in February, Palin's office in Juneau sent Sen. Stevens a detailed 70-page memo seeking nearly $200 million for 31 new projects in the state. Alaska receives more federal funds per-capita than any state in the nation.

From the point of view of a typical Alaskan, Palin probably did the right thing by seeking earmarks for her state. The average West Virginian certainly appreciates benefits received through efforts by Sen. Robert C. Byrd.

However, a contradiction has arisen, because Palin's running-made on the GOP presidential ticket has made opposition to earmarks a major focus of the 2008 campaign. How can John McCain continue denouncing "pork-barrel projects," while his partner is a national leader in that department?

Maybe they'll both simply fall silent on the topic, and hope that voters don't remember it.

Meanwhile, we wish that all foes of government spending would focus on the most colossal tab of all: hundreds of billions funneled into President Bush's needless, ill-conceived Iraq war - which is being fought on borrowed money that future taxpayers must repay.

Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes denounced that drain in their book, The Three Trillion War. After it was published, they revised their estimate upward to $4 trillion.

When the bill for this gigantic blunder bleeds the U.S. Treasury, there'll be less money available for worthy hometown earmarks around America.

While mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, from 1996 to 2002, Sarah Palin hired a Republican lobbying firm in Washington to help get her 6,700-resident town $26.9 million in federal earmarks. U.S. tax dollars funded a youth shelter, mental health center, transportation hub, rail project and sewer repairs.

Palin got those boons for Wasilla while Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee. (Today, Stevens is facing trial for accepting $250,000 in unreported personal gifts.)

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told The Washington Post that Palin "certainly wasn't shy about putting the old-boy network to use to bring home millions of dollars. She's a little more savvy to the ways of Washington than she's let on."

After she was elected governor of Alaska in 2006, Palin initially backed plans to build the $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere." She subsequently worked to cancel that questionable project.

Just in February, Palin's office in Juneau sent Sen. Stevens a detailed 70-page memo seeking nearly $200 million for 31 new projects in the state. Alaska receives more federal funds per-capita than any state in the nation.

From the point of view of a typical Alaskan, Palin probably did the right thing by seeking earmarks for her state. The average West Virginian certainly appreciates benefits received through efforts by Sen. Robert C. Byrd.

However, a contradiction has arisen, because Palin's running-made on the GOP presidential ticket has made opposition to earmarks a major focus of the 2008 campaign. How can John McCain continue denouncing "pork-barrel projects," while his partner is a national leader in that department?

Maybe they'll both simply fall silent on the topic, and hope that voters don't remember it.

Meanwhile, we wish that all foes of government spending would focus on the most colossal tab of all: hundreds of billions funneled into President Bush's needless, ill-conceived Iraq war - which is being fought on borrowed money that future taxpayers must repay.

Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes denounced that drain in their book, The Three Trillion War. After it was published, they revised their estimate upward to $4 trillion.

When the bill for this gigantic blunder bleeds the U.S. Treasury, there'll be less money available for worthy hometown earmarks around America.