Congressman Jeff Flake: A foe to the GOP but a friend to the Democrats?

Meet Congressmen Jeff Flake of Arizona.

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"For everyone who stops me on the street and says, 'Why don't you give money to this library or this museum?' you know, you have a hundred saying, 'Atta boy,'"
Rep. Jeff Flake

(CBS) Buried in the fine print is $70 billion, give or take a billion or two. It is one subject members of Congress don’t like talking about: earmarks. The $70 billion covers just this year's crop of earmarks. Earmarks designate money for a multitude of hometown projects that may also benefit lobbyists and the industries they represent. Most of them are buried in the fine print of legislation and are seldom debated. Many say they’re one of Congress’s dirty little secrets, that a good part of that $70 billion is pork – government waste at its worst. As correspondent Morley Safer reports, past examples include the $223 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, which almost got approved, and half a million for a teapot museum in North Carolina, which did. This story is about one congressman’s mission to end earmarks that has pitted him against the House, in particular against members of his own party.

"Everyone bears some blame here but Republicans are going to be blamed disproportionately. And then I have to say we deserve it, because we’ve been in charge," says Rep. Jeff Flake, a conservative Republican from Arizona.

More on Rep. Flake's interview.