From the Heritage Foundation. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) likes to say that Congressional earmarking has become the gateway drug to federal overspending.  Is there any better evidence of this theory then President Barack Obama’s $1 billion earmark for a special project in Illinois that was slipped into his failed $862 billion stimulus?  According to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, the Obama Administration awarded $1 billion on August 5^th for a Carbon Capture and Storage Network in Illinois:

Today’s announcement will help ensure the US remains competitive in a carbon constrained economy, creating jobs while reducing greenhouse gas pollution.  This investment in the world’s first, commercial-scale, oxy-combustion power plant will help to open up the over $300 billion market for coal unit repowering and position the country as a leader in an important part of the global clean energy economy

This project was an earmark in the stimulus according to a Washington Post story dated March 6, 2009:

Deep inside the economic stimulus package is a $1 billion prize that, in five short words, shows the benefits of being in power in Washington. The funding, for “fossil energy research and development,” is likely to go to a power plant in a small Illinois town, a project whose longtime backers include a group of powerful lawmakers from the state, among them President Obama.

Stimulus seems to be a way of rewarding the people who voted for you with money from the people who didn’t vote for you. At least, that’s the way it is for Obama, apparently.