Bond: Without Earmarks, Money Will Go To "Left Coast"

Sen. Kit Bond defended using earmarks to bring back millions of dollars to Missouri over the years, and said most of the reforms he's heard about are already part of the process.

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"I agree with transparency . . . Bring them to the floor, defend them," Bond said in an interview with The Notebook Friday. "I think they ought to be out there, where people can look at them, argue about them."

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Bond also notes he knocked out $1 million dollars for the "Hippie Museum" and used an earmark to eliminate the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere."

BELOW: BOND SAYS IF MISSOURI SENATORS DON'T FIGHT FOR EARMARKS, MONEY IS LIKELY TO GO TO POPULATION CENTERS

With Bond's retirement in 2010 and Sen. Claire McCaskill's pledge not to take any earmarks, will Missouri continue to benefit from such funding?

"There are times when we won't," Bond warned. "The money will tend to go to the east coast and left coast."

ALSO: Says he went to Washington because as Governor, he saw how much federal money was being misspent on the wrong priorities in Missouri.