THE EXAMINER: Why Earmarks Matter a Great Deal. “Just as senators and representatives protect each other’s earmarks in an ingrained culture of mutual back-scratching, they also protect each other’s big ticket spending proposals as well. So the message is: ‘I’ll vote for your planetarium in return for you voting for my otherwise unneeded line of new submarines or another duplicative, wasteful welfare program’ or whatever.” Yes, earmarks matter out of proportion to their financial cost for the same reason that bribes do.