http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/03/senate-votes-earmarks-spending/

I thought Obama pledged in his campaign to end earmarks and stop the Washington business as usual stuff.

Although since it seems like half his cabinet are ex-Clinton staffers and cabinet members, why should we expect anything else.

If Obama signs this bill, which it looks like he will, without sending it back to have the earmarks stripped out, then we'll know for sure that he is NO different than any other polietician.

Skybill: I thought Obama pledged in his campaign to end earmarks

And he made that pledge...when?

Seems you are confused:

1) Obama promised no Earmarks in the Stimulus bill. That seems to have been fulfilled.

2) Obama promised during the campaign to REDUCE earmarks, not ELIMINATE them.

By the way, Bill, why is it your non-partisan "all politicians are liars" rhetoric only seems to come up when you talk about Democrats but you are always silent on this when talking about Republicans? Hmm...

Current kings of earmarks in the US Senate -- Republicans Thad Cockran and Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Almost a billion dollars worth. Not bad for two conservatives from the deep south.

From the Fox News report:

"The White House has said that Obama intends to sign the legislation, casting it as leftover business from 2008. Spokesman Robert Gibbs pledged on Monday the White House will issue new guidelines covering earmarks for future bills."

Keith covered this bit of BS pretty well tonight.

...when you talk about Democrats but you are always silent on this when talking about Republicans?...

Nope. If you'll read my posts, I've said many, many times that they are ALL liars (and crooks too). It matters not which side of the aisle they are on.

I trust NONE of them.

Their (ALL of them, including the democrats lord Obama) main objective is to fill their own pockets as full as they can get them.

Politicians are just an evil that we have to put up with.

Skybill: I thought Obama pledged in his campaign to end earmarks

And he made that pledge...when?

Seems you are confused:

Hmmmm. I must not be the only confused one then.

This from the Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008805055_rahmbo03.html

WASHINGTON — Although President Obama has repeatedly pledged to ban congressional earmarks, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has 16 such projects, worth $8.5 million, in the bill the Senate is to begin debating today.

The earmarks include money for a Chicago planetarium and a Chicago suburb. Obama has been relentless in criticizing the use of earmarks; in his address to a joint session of Congress last week, he boasted how the economic-stimulus package was "free of earmarks."

By the end of this week, however, Obama's likely to sign a separate $410 billion spending plan that keeps most domestic programs funded through Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year. It's a plan that contains about 9,000 earmarks.

But upon further investigation it seems that what he really said was that he would reduce them to pre 1994 levels "Obama pledged to reduce earmarks to below 1994 levels — when the GOP took control of the House — or less than $7.8 billion a year."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/01/orszag-obama-will-sign-om_n_170861.html

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/03/orszag-obama-wi.html

So even at that, this is not a good start. He's already exceeded the $7.8 Billion in this one bill alone.

Calling it "Last Year's" business is like hearing a third grader in the sandbox "he did it, it's not my fault, waaaa, waaaa"

If he really wants to set a good example, veto this bill and only sign it when ALL the earmarks are removed.

BFD. If that's all we have to worry about, we are gonna be fine.

Frankly, I'm not opposed to those things. We have reps to go get stuff for us. That happens.

The bigger issue is our economic policy in general, and the destruction it's had on our jobs. We need to build more stuff, and when we do that, these earmarks are no big deal.

Expressed as a fraction of our tax burden, it's laughable to even discuss these things.

Earmarks are just a fancy name for graft.

Did you look at some of them?

"$1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa; $2 million "for the promotion of astronomy" in Hawaii; $6.6 million for termite research in New Orleans; $2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in New York"

I'd be willing to bet that if you looked at who is getting the graft, you would be able to trace it to people who made donations to that senator or congressman. It might take some digging, because there has been enough visibility recently that it's probably pretty well buried, but it will be there just the same.

My main beef isn't so much the earmarks proper, I'm sure that some of them are valid and actually benefit the public in general rather than just some political donor, but that some of them are so ridiculously stupid that if you don't laugh out loud at them there is something wrong with you.

Expressed as a fraction of our tax burden, it's laughable to even discuss these things.

Yes, on a one by one basis, but a bunch of little thing add up to a lot.

Not really.

Express the whole lot of them as a percentage of your tax burden and you get squat.

Non issue. We've got bigger fish to fry, and besides we have reps for those kinds of things. Some of it is gonna happen. Much better to fix the job situation and the buying power per hour worked situation, and marginalize this whole discussion.

This is like squabbling over a nickle, when the deal is worth $1000. It's stupid.

I'm gonna focus on the $1000, and ignore the little things. That's where the pay offs are.

Many pounds of pork can add up to a thousand dollars.

Really?

Please show me how these earmarks are gonna hit you for a thousand.

I think he means it as a metaphor.

As in a lot of little expenditures over time will eventually add up.

Any wasteful spending should be cut. Especially for stupid things like "Pig odor in Iowa".

Bill, I think you are confusing the terms "pork" and "earmark." They are not the same things at all.

An "earmark" is an appropriation added to some unrelated bill - like, money for a new water treatment plant for some congressman's district, attached to a completely unrelated defense appropriations bill. It's sometimes a slippery way for congresspeople to insist on getting something they want in exchange for their vote on a bigger bill.

But an earmark need not necessarily be something bad. It's just a legislative trick to try to force a president to approve something he may not want to approve. What, you're going to VETO a defense appropriations bill - what, are you anti-military?

The Republican Congress that took over in 1995 was of two minds on this: they tried to give the President a line-item veto, to help him avoid this kind of crap, but that was later deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Once that happened, Republicans took earmarks in the exact opposite direction, to new levels, making the earmarking Democrats before them look like amateurs.

And no, Bill, I don't recall you raising a big stink about big Republican earmarks (no one was bigger than them on this) before 2007. Did you vote against any Republicans because of this, by chance?

Bill, I don't recall you raising a big stink about big Republican earmarks (no one was bigger than them on this) before 2007...

I didn't post much back then so you wouldn't have seen anything. But I'm not for it by either party, UNLESS it serves a real purpose, unlike most of the earmarks of late.

tried to give the President a line-item veto, to help him avoid this kind of crap, but that was later deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Yeah. I don't see how that would be unconstitutional. I think the Supreme Court was bought off by the people who add earmarks to unrelated bills!!

How's that for starting a rumor!

LOL!!

I think it's just small. Show me amounts that actually have an impact, in that our personal life choices are affected, and I'll listen up.

So we have a bill that's say 90 percent solid. That's freaking solid! Next bill.

That's how it is going to go.

If we bog down on little details, that's as much of a problem as just dealing with some of this stuff. I would much rather see rapid legislation now than slow legislation.

think it's just small. Show me amounts that actually have an impact...

That's what I'm saying though. 10 million here, 300 million there, etc, etc. Pretty soon you are up to a billion then 10 billion and on and on.

Any wasteful spending cuts add up over time.

Ok, so show me the impact on your taxes.

I don't see what I pay changing significantly. Given that, the higher priority is to get the serious things done.

That will change what I make, how much I can buy, and what I pay. Those multipliers matter.

It truly is sad that the line-item veto was deemed unconstitutional.

>>Pretty soon you are up to a billion then 10 billion and on and on

no fuzzy math here but just simple arithmetic we all learned in grade school...it's outa control.

>>line-item veto was deemed unconstitutional

sadly so...needs to be a presidental option for both parties.

"$1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa; $2 million "for the promotion of astronomy" in Hawaii; $6.6 million for termite research in New Orleans; $2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in New York"

Somebody gets hired to do the pig odor research, right? That's stimulating the econonmy. And if you live downwind from a pig farm, it would probably benefit you.

Somebody gets hired to do the pig odor research, right?

Sure. And I bet they have a direct connection in some way to the person who put the earmark in the bill.

Use that money to patch pot holes in the roads or something that benefits someone other than the senators friends. People have to be paid for that too.

>>That's stimulating the econonmy

and causes the cash printing press to humm more...so much for change.

How do you know that there's not a benefit to the research?

Exactly!!

This just kills me! If we are paying people, and those dollars are building value, we've got NO problems, other than doing more of it, so we get more people paid, and more value produced.

If we produce enough value, we turn the tide on the debt. This is basic stuff.

I don't care what the value is, nor how we arrive at it. I only care that people are working and value is being built.