Check out this interview of Ron Paul discussing earmarks.  An outspoken critic of most forms of federal spending, Ron Paul was fine with taking home tens of millions in earmarks for his district.

I fully take his point that transparency is the real issue.  But I do think it's a bit disingenuous to claim to be against almost all forms of federal spending, but then pull in as much as possible for your district.  Simply voting against the bill does not give him some sort of immunity. 

I am certainly no expert in the federal government appropriations process - but it seems to me that Mr. Paul knows he can't change the game, so he just plays it the best he can.  In the end, almost everyone agrees the earmark process needs reform, but the actual dollar amounts involved are so small that it's almost a waste of time given the other priorities of the federal government right now.  The real dollars are in entitlement spending.  The future Medicare liability is many, many orders of magnitude larger than the so-called earmarked pork.