If Palin's lobbying for an earmark is didn't expand the federal pie but simply put a bigger slice of it on her community's plate, then she was morally entitled to pursue that money precisely because she opposes and has fought against the earmark system. That would have been the verdict of radical individualist and opponent of socialism Ayn Rand: Rand explained that it is proper to accept, and even seek, government money once it's been collected, as restitution for the taxes one has been forced to pay, as long as one takes a principled stand against them.

A genuine reformer is not required to disadvantage herself or her constituents in the distribution of government funds, while the unscrupulous who lobbied to create the earmark system keep all the loot to themselves. As Rand said, "[m]inimizing the financial injury inflicted on [taxpayers] by the welfare-state laws, does not constitute support of welfare statism.... Initiating, advocating, or expanding such laws is."

To the extent Palin's lobbying expanded federal spending, though, the case becomes more ambiguous, and the Rand defense goes out the window.

The earmark system is necessarily corrupt, since it represents rule by men, not by law. Sarah Palin didn't create the system, but as mayor of a city she had to operate within it. In that sense,  Mayor Palin might be viewed as a hostage to a corrupt system. Perhaps the worst that might be said of her was that she paid ransom to that corruption on behalf of her constituents.