Posted on 02/23/2009 12:15:02 PM PST by Crazieman
During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidates Barack Obama and John McCain fought vigorously over who would be toughest on congressional earmarks.
"We need earmark reform," Obama said in September during a presidential debate in Oxford, Miss. "And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely."
President Barack Obama should prepare to carve out a lot of free time and keep the coffee hot this week as Congress prepares to unveil a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that's riddled with thousands of earmarks, despite his calls for restraint and efforts on Capitol Hill to curtail the practice.
The bill will contain about 9,000 earmarks totaling $5 billion, congressional officials say. Many of the earmarks — loosely defined as local projects inserted by members of Congress — were inserted last year as the spending bills worked their way through various committees.
So while Obama and McCain were slamming earmarks on the campaign trail, House and Senate members — Democrats and Republicans — were slapping them into spending bills.
"It will be a little embarrassing for the president if he signs a bill with that many earmarks on it," said Stan Collender, a veteran Washington budget analyst. "He'll say they're left over from the Bush years, and he as to say that next year the bill will be clean."
Experts agree that most earmarks are legitimate. Cary Leahey, senior economist with Decision Economics in New York, said the nation's economic crisis is a contributing factor to the plethora of earmarks. Lawmakers can argue that for a relatively small price they've helped boost the economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
Earmarks are an irrelevant diversion. It’s the Spending Stupid.
Why are people so stupid as to believe a 'Rat when they talk about cutting spending when NOTHING the 'Rats have done in the past century points to the fact that they spend every nickel they can beg, borrow, or steal?
At sometime . . NOW . . . Obama must stop blaming Bush and pick up responsiblity himself.
Any listing of earmarks by congress critter and the amounts that you have seen? It would be nice to know who and how much each one has inserted.
this railing against earmarks on the republican side is STUPID. Its not earmark thats the problem. Its the massive spending. All earmarking does, it put specific amount of money into specific projects. Non-earmark spending gives the executive branch free reign in spending
its the non-earmark spending thats the PROBLEM. If you take out all earmark spending, its but 1%. Why do you ignore the 99% non-earmark spending?
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