McCain Blasts Obama on Earmarks: “So much for the promise of change”

But Senator Schumer (D) told us that Americans don’t care about a few of those pesky little earmarks.
I don’t know when a few became thousands. Over 8,000 earmarks were identified in the recent omnibus budget.
At a time when the economy is in crisis, as Obama keeps telling us, why is he permitting ANY earmarks and why is his own staff adding to the budget bloat?

next up , obama explains why he voted for the telecom immunity he said he would filibuster..
oh, wait, he never explains, he just counts on his worshipers to give him a pass-
and they do.

Wall Street Journal today: “Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama’s policies have become part of the economy’s problem.”

It’s no wonder that sales of Atlas Shrugged are way up.
Even the college kids on Facebook are reading that book and worried. They’ve started a movement “Stop the spending”.
They know that at this rate there will be nothing to graduate to except massive unemployment.

It stuns me to read comments like Matt’s. Apparently Obama’s supporters don’t care that he has broken yet another promise regarding earmarks.
Heck, those supporters don’t even care that not one Congressional democrat has even read the stimulus bill. Sad really.

How can a chief of staff to the White House ask for earmarks? The Seattle Times is reporting that although Obama has pledged to ban 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.

Steve Forbes says that 1933 is coming again.
Thanks Obama.

Democrats have roughly 1 1/2 times as many people in Congress yet Republicans lead them slightly with their earmark spending on this Bill at 700 million with the Dems coming in at 675 million.
Republican Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell has 75 million dollars in earmarks and the Republican Senators from Mississippi win the award for the biggest and most earmarks on this bill. Thad Cochran has 470 Million in earmarks and Shelby has another 114 Million.
This legislation is from last year. I don’t like the earmarks, but Obama has said moving forward it will be different and it better be. He has chosen not to pick a battle/change the rules on this bill after the game is in progress.
Peach – if you want to expose possible “lies” – wait until it’s legitimate and you’re willing to give your own party as much scrutiny as you are the Democrats – otherwise, it’s just conspiracy blah blah blah….

It’s pretty clear that the GOP thinks ANY government spending is “pork”. So what’s new? More whining…

They are many gang members who want to get out of the gang , head back to school or get a job and be productive citizens in our society,Don’t we all preach that they should , well we either put up or shut up.
i watch a HBO show and many didn’t have the money to get the tattos remove, And find many employers didn’t hire them because of it . plus if you TRULY want to make a CLEAN BREAK from a gang shouldn’t all the tatoos be off.
i rather our tax payers dollars going to look after people in this country, rather than fighting unnecessary wars and REBUILDING OIL rich iraq.

Yesterday it was 7.7 billion in earmarks according to Jake, today Sunlen reports it’s less than 5.5 billion. That’s a more than 28% difference!
In any case, earmarks are less than 1.5% of the total budget.
Calling that “pork laden”, as this blog now has two days in a row, is kind of like calling 1% milk “fat laden.”
I’m amazed how far this blog will go to accept Republican talking points without question.
I’d like to see any pointless spending eliminated too, but getting so agitated about such a tiny percentage of the budget seems misplaced, a suspiciously like a publicity stunt.
It would have been more fair, and more interesting, to investigate why the some of the items on McCain’s list were earmarked for spending (at least one or two of them for crying out loud). The list is just unexamined Republican pr without some exploration of whether that spending really would be a waste.

26 years in the senate, thanks to your maverick leadership Senataor McCain we are in the worst economic meltdown I’ve ever seen. You cspan debut proved that “you don’t know what you’re talking about”, and all you can do is criticizing Obama’s honest attempts to fix the problems that phony conservatives like you created.

40% of the earmarks were placed there by Republicans, John McCain’s buddies.

Not to worry folks. Obama’s own administration projects it will only cost $1 billion/day to pay the interest ONLY on the debt we currently have.
And that’s at today’s low interest rates. And Obama wants to add MORE debt.
Sure – a few hundred million here and there in earmarks don’t mean a thing. **rolling my eyes**

What in God’s name can we do just putting words on this monster? If we don’t like what is going on in Washington, why aren’t we writing letters and calling our representatives?
The mainstream media doesn’t care what we have to say, they only use it for fodder for the next blurb. This economic mess is only being compounded by our silence to Washington. obama is destroying America…let’s make them hear us!!!

How can the President’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, dare to put something in the budget. Did that happened while he was Chief of Staff for President Bill
Clinton too. How many times has this happened. I read that the President and Vice President also have earmarks in the bill.
The President is such a liar putting in earmarks for his own purposes, when he said he was going to have a earmark free bill.
So much to listening you folks. We’re probably have to have a revolution to get folks to make the government observe the laws in the country. What a bunch of chumps that got this man elected.

Obama promised no earmarks and that he would go line by line through budgets and legislation.
Since then, he has signed and pushed for legislation loaded with earmarks, not just this “Bush budget” as you claim.
In fact, ABC recently reported on all the pork in the spending bill. But carry on and pretend that you don’t mind that Obama has broken this and other promises.

This from a man who allowed Sarah Palin and Company to highjack the Straight Talk express and Cost him an election.

It’s funny how the other side all of a sudden gets offended when there is outrage towards their policies, did you forget how much “whining” you did during the previous administration? So it’s not all right for the opposing side to do the same? Come on people take the blinders off! The honeymoon is over, can Obama do no wrong? Since when do you not care about wasteful spending, especially when we are in an economic crisis? Removing tatoos will save lives, really? Can you hear yourself talk? With home prices at record lows, interest rates a full point lower than last year, oil at its lowest in over a decade, stocks at its cheapest, the economy is still not turning around…it’s easy to see who’s to blame, Obama’s economic policies!

“$951,000 for a sustainable Las Vegas”
Install a mobster, get a “sustainable” Las Vegas. And zillion-dollar wars everywhere. And more powers to the Cheney-Bush-style dictatorial executive.
Oh, the “Obama” organization so truly sucks.

Peach: You DO realize, don’t you, that the president DOES NOT have a line-item veto? This was covered in 7th grade Civics.

Peach: Ranger explained to you what this bill is, exactly. Did you miss it?

slinky:”Removing tatoos will save lives, really?”
I’m willing to pony up a few bucks to remove the racist jailhouse tats from a young man’s face who hooked up with the Aryan Nations for protection. It can mean the difference between him getting a job at McD’s when he gets out rather than going back to dealing or mugging people. The tattoo removal program is based on REALITY, and a number of studies have shown it to be a very wise investment to reduce crime and recidivism. Once again, Republicans seem to take pride in being stupid – preferring to waste money and lives in the pursuit of a 3 year old’s concept of fairness or a good bumpersticker.

Good deal! Way to go, Rahm. We want those projects here in IL Peach. It means construction jobs.

Peach:”Obama promised to go line by line through legislation to ensure there were no earmarks. ”
No, he did not. His platform said he would go “line-by-line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”
Do you even see how that is NOT the same as ‘no earmarks’? Do you even know what earmarks are (and how they are constitutionally part of Congress’s ‘power of the purse’)? You have no credibility when you paraphrase what Obama says, twisting it to the farthest extreme in an attempt to slander him.

Apparently all government spending is good spending, and complaints of overspending in the past were misguided.

Go to Bloomberg and read about pension funding issues. It’s not just your portfolio that’s tanking.

“… an outrageous insult to the American people.”
Two words:
SARAH PALIN
So much for “Country First”.
McCain has discredited himself – I don’t care what he has to say.

No, not all government spending is good spending. However, Obama doesn’t write the earmarks – it is your representatives. Don’t like it? Stop voting for your representative. Obama doesn’t have a line item veto. McCain’s “solution” would be to veto everything and bring government to a standstill. He doesn’t get it that there are dumb-sounding projects that are actually useful and not worth stagnating government over.

natale from ma:”I DONT CARE IF EARMARKS CAME FROM THE LEFT OR RIGHT THEIR SHOULD NOT BE ANY”
You are either fundamentally ignorant of the Constitution, or harbor a great deal of contempt for the founding father’s governmental structure. Earmarks are THE fundamental power given to Congress to check the Executive Branch.
Earmarks are a defined type of budgeting power – they are not a meaningless subjective word like ‘pork.’

macain is still showing how bitter he really is

ceeLeecee:”What part of NO EARMARKS do you not understand? ”
? There were no earmarks in the stimulus bill, as he promised. He did not request earmarks as a senator in the 2009 budget (which was written last year during the campaign) as promised. You have some serious reading comprehension problems if you think what you posted includes a promise from Obama to not sign budget bills with earmarks.

Manufactured outrage. Good show, Mr. McCain. Bravo! (golf clap)

at least McCain payes his taxes, more than I can say for most of BHO cabinet. so before you bash McCain. look at the clown act the dems have put on display.

Ahhh USDoomed – Have you forgotten Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Linda Chavez, Duke Cunningham, James Ortenzo and so many more who failed to pay taxes?.? And the corporate tax evasion of Halliburton..?
You can’t just call out a “clown act” and ignore the circus.

Whether McCain is bitter or not is immaterial. He is correct. BHO has no right corn-holing us with a bunch of pork after all his speeches to the contrary. The entire government has no right to saddle us with more than the absolute necessity.

And so it goes……………
Obama’s promise not to pass bills laden with pork. Now, as we settle in to the realities of Washington, I am afraid we will see little change. It is the way the systems works, or doesn’t.

I think there should be pause to examine why these things are labeled as pork. I can see a purpose to the tatoo removal program in helping people to shed their gang involved life-styles. These measures might be a part of something larger. To pick and chose items as pork without context doesn’t make sense.
And speaking of wasteful spending, I would like to remind McCain of that Iraq thing.

to keys1955, that would be nice, but does he know what his job is????? So far Queen Botox Pelosi and Prince Harry Reid have made all the decisions.