"the accomplishments Ted Stevens brags about are worse than the crimes he denies"

The subtitle from an essay with a great point from Jacob Sullum in Reason...

I wonder if Ted believes in the Ten Commandments-- the 8th, in particular?

A few years ago, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma suggested taking money earmarked for a notoriously extravagant "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska and using it for reconstruction in Louisiana. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, a fellow Republican, angrily declared, "This is the first time I have seen any attempt by any senator to treat my state...differently from any other state."...

The octogenarian senator's gift for grabbing dollars in the zero-sum game of congressional appropriations helps explain his easy victory in last summer's Republican primary, despite his indictment less than a month before on federal charges of hiding corporate gifts. Yet the "track record of delivering results for Alaskans" he brags about is more scandalous than the crimes he denies....

From 2004 to 2008, Taxpayers for Common Sense reports, Stevens had a hand in 891 Alaska-benefiting earmarks worth $3.2 billion. That works out to about $4,800 per Alaskan, 18 times the national average. And earmarks represent just a fraction of federal spending in Alaska, which totaled $9 billion in 2006 alone.

According to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked first in federal spending per capita in 18 of the 25 years from 1981 through 2005. In 2005 Alaskans received $1.84 for every dollar they sent to Washington in taxes. Stevens has played such an important role in this northward redistribution of income that Alaskans call federal spending "Stevens money."

Alaska continues to receive these subsidies even though its government, which collects neither sales nor income tax from state residents, is flush with oil revenue and running budget surpluses....