After months of unending criticism, taxpayers can breathe a sigh of relief now that the Congress gave in to public outrage and reluctantly stripped two “bridges to nowhere” in Alaska from the transportation bill. This victory shows what can happen when taxpayers stand up to the most powerful big spenders in Congress.

In this summer’s transportation bill, Congress approved $454 million in earmarks for the two “bridges to nowhere” – one to connect Ketchikan to an island where less than 50 people live and the other, un-humbly named “Don Young’s Way” after Rep. Young (R-AK), to connect Anchorage to an undeveloped, unpopulated plot of land. With the strong support of Rep. Young and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), a powerful voice in the Senate, it looked like taxpayers were going to have to buy the bridges.

Just last month Sen. Stevens threatened to resign if Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) amendment to cut funding for the bridges was approved. And that provision had the noble aim of redirecting the money to rebuild the I-10 Bridge over Lake Ponchartrain in New Orleans. The amendment lost 82-15.

But a steady stream of negative articles, late night parodies, nasty editorials, and constituent letters turned the bridges into symbols of out-of-control federal spending. Symbols can be powerful and this was one that the Congress desperately wanted to eliminate. Finally, enough was enough, and Congress told the Alaska delegation that the bridges went too far.

Despite his promise to resign, Sen. Stevens, ever the clever wordsmith, told reporters that he would remain in the Senate because he “said [he]'d [only] resign if they took the money from our state,” and while the bridges may be out, the money for Alaska isn’t.

The work never ends. The next battle is to make the system of funding transportation projects more fair and equitable. Though the bridges are out of the bill, not a single dime of federal funds was cut from Alaska’s total transportation funding. Nor does this move cure Congress of its pork problem or reduce the size of this bill to ensure we have enough money to pay for our promises. The cynical among us would say that this was a way to reduce the political heat Congress was feeling without having to actually cut costs.

So America’s winter of fiscal discontent begins with a major victory over two of the most egregious pork projects ever to grace the halls of Congress. But the backlash shouldn’t end there. Fiscally responsible Senators narrowly lost a bid to strip tax breaks from the big oil companies last week, and they are still fighting to cut back portions of the bloated energy bill. In the House, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) continues to push legislation to slim down the transportation bill and free states of the more than 6,000 vanity projects that lawmakers stuffed into the bill.

America’s outrage over the fiscal insanity in Washington has reached its boiling point. Lawmakers would do well to take notice, or they may be packing their bags for home come next November.