Olbermann to McCain: Earmark spending is not an issue David Edwards and Joe Byrne

Published: Wednesday March 4, 2009





Print This Email This A $410 billion annual spending bill is making its way through the Senate and is expected to be signed by Obama on Friday. The bill contains nine spending units that would fund domestic agencies and the State Department until September 30th. Democratic leaders hope to pass it in time for President Obama to sign it by Friday, when a stopgap funding measure expires.



However, Senators from both sides of the aisle have taken issue with the $7.7 billion taken up by 8500 attributed earmarks, pet projects supported by local and state constituents that get tagged on to congressional spending bills. Senator Feingold, a Democrat from Wisconsin, told reporters, I have typically not voted for omnibus bills because they always end up like this, referring to the earmarks.



John McCain, more than anyone else, has put up the most vocal resistance to the earmarks on this year's spending bill. So much for the promise of change, McCain hypothetically addressed Obama from the Senate floor yesterday. In all the years I've been coming to this floor to complain about the earmark pork-barrel corruption that this system has bred, this may be...probably the worst, McCain said, pounding on the podium for emphasis. The Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday against McCain's measure to strip the earmarks from the omnibus spending bill, 63-32.



Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown has a few reasons why blaming Obama for an earmark frenzy is ludicrous.



Is this the change Mr. Obama promised? Olbermann asks. The bill was negotiated by Congressional Democrats and Republicans in December.



Mr. Obama's campaign promise was that he would limit earmarks to the earmark total from 1994, Olbermann adds. The earmarks on this bill fall short of Obama's promised earmark spending by a hundred million dollars. But Olbermann has more evidence to refute McCain's claim that this a record level of earmarks. In 2006, the last of several years of Republican earmark orgies, Congressional earmarks totaled $29 billion.



The $787 billion economic stimulus bill, passed by Congress on February 15, was completely free of earmarks. This was urged by Obama in the creation of the bill and enforced by top Democrats. The Obama White House is already in talks with Congressional Democrats to reform the earmark process. An announcement is expected by the time Obama signs the 'omnibus' bill, Olbermann declares.



If McCain has someone to blame for the 8500 earmarks in this year's spending bill, it's not Obama.



This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Mar. 3, 2009.









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