Flake tweets McConnell didn't get the message on earmarks

Budget hawk Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday for opposing an earmark ban. 

"Looks like someone didn't get the message last week," Flake tweeted Tuesday. 

A longtime appropriator, McConnell has been forthright about his belief that Congress controls the purse strings and can decide where money is spent. He's also argued that eliminating earmarks won't save much money or provide the spending cuts needed to chip away at the burgeoning deficit.

"Every president would like for us to appropriate all the money and send it to them and let them spend it in any way they want to," McConnell said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "The earmark issue is about discretion — about an argument between the executive branch and the legislative branch over how funds should be spent."

Flake is trying to land a spot on the House Appropriations Committee and has the backing of probable chairman, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.).

As McConnell tries to gin up support for keeping earmarks, he might have gained an unlikely ally in newly elected Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Paul has voiced strong opposition to the practice, but he told The Wall Street Journal over that weekend that while earmarks are a bad “symbol” of easy spending he will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork as long as it’s doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in during the dead of night.

“I will advocate for Kentucky’s interests,” he said.

Paul's possible change of policy runs counter to that of South Carolina Jim DeMint, who's trying to shore up support for a Senate moratorium. DeMint has been collecting signatures of those who support a ban. 

Earmarks typically amount to about 1 percent of the discretionary part of the federal budget — $15.9 billion in fiscal year 2010.

"This debate doesn't save any money," McConnell said, "which is why it's kind of exasperating to go some of us who really want to cut spending."

House Republican leaders are backing a moratorium and President Obama has voiced his support for the ban.