Once again, Congress waited until the end of the year to rush through a pile of appropriations bills. And once again, those bills are loaded with pork barrel spending.

Heritage's Brian Rield counts upwards of 10,000 earmarked projects in the 11 remaining appropriations bills, which is about the same amount of pork as last year. After getting throttled at the ballot box for their fiscal largess, the Republican Congress apparently hasn't taken voters' disgust to heart. Riedl's list of the worst pork projects in the bills contains a few howlers like there:

• $1,000,000 for Mormon Cricket & Grasshopper Activities in Utah
• $575,000 for Detroit Renaissance (Good luck!)
• $6,371,000 for Wood Utilization Research (!?)
• $175,000 for the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy (Agassi has $31 million in career earnings, plus probably more in endorsement fees)

So it's business as usual, in other words.

Except not exactly. Sen. Tom Coburn, a true fiscal conservative, plans to offer up to 40 amendments to strip some of the worst pork out of the Ag appropriations bill.

The Senate needs more like Coburn.

And perhaps the Democrats will have better luck controlling spending. Heritage's Ron Utt thinks that House Speaker-to-be Pelosi has a chance to put an end to this earmarking madness.

So will appropriations next year be any different? At the least, with his party-mates out of power, Sen. Coburn should have a few more allies.