WASHINGTON — Conservative bloggers and columnists hail U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint for standing up to pork-barrel spenders in Congress through his hard-line opposition to lawmakers’ traditional ways of funding pet projects.

But back home in South Carolina, the first-term Greenville Republican’s campaign against “earmarks” is less heroic in some quarters — especially among health care, education and other groups left waiting for federal money they say is desperately needed.

Bart Teal, head of a nonprofit group based in Chapin, had expected to receive $100,000 to buy computerized blackboards and labs for some of the state’s poorest schools. Now that money is on hold, thanks to a federal budget standoff sparked in large measure by DeMint.

“If I could take you into these schools, I would get tears from you because these kids have nothing,” Teal said. “This is 2006 in America. If we think there is no child being left behind, that is absolutely wrong.”

DeMint turned down several interview requests Friday; an aide said he was unavailable because of the holidays.

The $100,000 for Teal’s organization — Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence — is one of 17 grants for S.C. groups in the 2007 fiscal year appropriations bill for federal agencies that fund schools, hospitals, clinics and community centers.

That legislation stalled in Congress. Before adjourning for the year, lawmakers passed only two appropriations measures — for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Ten other bills, funding much of the federal government, were stymied.

DeMint and a handful of other senators said last month’s election results showed Americans were upset about increased congressional spending, especially by GOP lawmakers who had run on small-government pledges.

“Earmarks are the gateway drug to spending addiction, and it’s time for Congress to wean itself from pork-barrel spending,” he said earlier.

With the S.C. senator at the forefront, the fiscal hawks targeted earmarks — special funding carve-outs often made anonymously and at the last minute when conference committees finalize appropriations bills already passed by the House and the Senate.

When DeMint and his partners demanded the 2007 spending measures be completed without any earmarks, congressional leaders from both parties decided instead to fund the government at 2006 levels.

Democrats, who will have majority control of Congress starting in January, will confront the funding impasse. Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi of California and incoming Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada have promised to reform the practice of earmarks, which quadrupled from 3,000 in the 1996 appropriations bills to 13,000 in those passed for the 2006 fiscal year.

DeMint and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., took credit for having stopped more than 10,000 new earmarks.

President Bush joined the growing chorus of reformers, saying in his radio address last weekend, “One of the best ways we can impose more discipline on federal spending is by addressing the problem of earmarks.”

DeMint took the cause a step further, asking Bush to direct his Cabinet secretaries to ignore the congressional earmarks sent to the executive agencies.

“The hero of the lame-duck (congressional) session was freshman Republican Sen. Jim DeMint,” Robert Novak, a nationally syndicated columnist, wrote last week.

Novak described an extraordinary closed-door meeting soon after the Nov. 7 elections in which DeMint challenged Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska who has served 38 years and is well known for drawing federal money to his state.

DeMint said he and Coburn would block any attempt to roll the remaining appropriations bills into one giant “omnibus” measure. Such huge spending measures often become “Christmas tree” legislation, with hundreds of earmarks attached.

The challenge infuriated Stevens, but congressional leaders backed down and passed a “continuing resolution” that continues the 2006 fiscal year funding levels.

In Rock Hill, Ernest Brown said his group of health clinics for poor people, the North Central Family Medical centers, will have to make do without the $100,000 he had expected to receive from Washington to help pay for an electronic medical records system. His group was to have shared the money with the Sandhills Medical Foundations, which also runs clinics for low-income people.

“I understand that we’re in a budget crisis, and (lawmakers) are trying to look at everything in terms of how they can save money and reduce the deficit,” Brown said. “I just wish they’d look more closely at programs like us who serve the most vulnerable population. We don’t have any fat in our operations. We have no waste.”

The 17 S.C. projects were among hundreds highlighted nationwide by Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington think tank. But members of South Carolina’s congressional delegation, Democrats and Republicans, said the projects are important.

“These are earmarks designed to bolster and improve health care in South Carolina, to buy equipment, to hire badly needed nurses, to improve cancer treatment in rural areas,” said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from Seneca.

Chuck Fant, a spokesman for Democratic U.S. Rep. John Spratt, also strongly defended the S.C. projects.

“All of the earmarks on this list go to improving health care or education in South Carolina, two areas of vital importance to our state.” Fant said. “The earmarks are good examples of how the federal government helps out at the local level.”

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Columbia Democrat, will be the No. 3 House leader — and the only South Carolinian on the Senate and House appropriations committees.

“He’s worked hard to get money for these projects,” said Kristie Greco, Clyburn’s communications director. “He stands by them.”

Rosen covers Washington for McClatchy newspapers in South Carolina.