PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Apparently, there’s some cost to this pork-barrel stuff:

JUNEAU — Alaska’s battered image means state lawmakers must loosen their purse strings if they want congressional aid to move the state’s big projects forward, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens told the Alaska Legislature on Wednesday.

The Alaska Republican says the nation is facing an $8 trillion deficit and paying for troops in Iraq while Alaska is enjoying a $1.4 billion surplus and has $34 billion in the bank with the Alaska Permanent Fund.

That has prompted ill will in Washington that has led critics to question the need to send Alaska federal money when the state won’t spend its own cash.

That sentiment led to the stripping of earmarks from Alaska’s two so-called “bridges to nowhere” projects last year even though Congress still appropriated the money for the Ketchikan and Anchorage projects, he said.

Now the process of earmarking is under severe attack, Stevens said.

Let’s keep attacking.