My main issue with earmarks is that they are simply ways of buying the votes of their district, by coming back home and saying, "Look how much money I got us!". The State governments balance their budgets. Earmarks are just a way for states to get extra funding for election purposes, and from what I've seen do little other than artificially create some worthless projects. The only thing I believe the federal government should do for states is fix national emergencies. Maybe major crop failure due to some disasters, or just disasters in general. Even so, I think if someone wants to live in a particular area, they should also be at partly responsible for certain payments. If someone lives in Florida they should probably have some form of insurance for national disasters. Instead, we have the Federal government subsidizing areas for people to live under conditions that they know are coming each year.