House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, affirmed his pledge to keep earmarks out of the legislative process, but admitted that i is harder to gather support for bills without giving earmarks to reluctant members of Congress.

“It’s a lot harder to win votes when you don’t have goodies to pass out,” Boehner said at CPAC 2012 today as he discussed the congressional earmark ban. “We sacrificed a powerful tool that’s been around for decades,” he added.