McCain continues battle against earmarks
Senator John McCain is not giving up his fight against earmarks, even though the Senate rejected his attempt on Tuesday to strip them from the spending bill going through Congress.
Teaming up with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, the Arizona Republican and former presidential candidate announced this morning they're introducing legislation to give the president a line-item veto to block earmarks.
McCain said earmarks -- which critics call pork-barrel projects -- represent a "corrupt practice" that has infiltrated Congress.
"I don't use the term corruption lightly," McCain said.
Feingold noted that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said last week that President Obama might want to "test drive" a line-item veto, different versions of which have been declared unconstitutional by federal courts.
It's time to "walk the walk," Feingold said.
UPDATE: Feingold said he believes this legislation would pass constitutional muster because Congress would have to vote whether to agree to the earmark cuts the president wanted. If either the House or Senate voted by a single majority against the cuts, the projects would be funded.
Gibbs said while the administration needs to study the details of the bill, Obama wouldn't turn down a line-item veto that is approved by the courts.
"I think what the president wants is to be able to, as he outlined today, with Democrats and Republicans, work with Congress to reduce the amount of wasteful spending that we have each year," Gibbs told reporters at his daily briefing. "That's the best way to go out and do this, to continue to look for the inefficiencies and the waste, to follow prescribed solutions for this that in many cases have been identified and just simply not acted on."
The $410 billion spending measure includes more than 8,500 earmarks totaling $7.7 billion, watchdog groups say. The Senate voted 63-32 on Tuesday against the attempt by McCain to remove them.
So far, the White House has cast the earmarks as last year's business, since the bill would finish out the budget that started last Oct. 1, before Obama became president.
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Simple. Create a national web-based registry of pork barrel spending for each and every bill which is made available for all to view. This would provide openness and serve to shame legislators and their constituents into ending this practice. It would need support of President and other influential Congressional members. Until it is no longer beneficial to political careers, it will never end, and the line-item veto is unlikely to pass.
Everyone should be mad as hell, it's our money!!! Lets put online every earmark and who put it in the bill. Why doesn't President Obama stop it like he promised!!!
That would give America some hope.
This is a spending bill from last year, old business, and contains about 2% earmarks. McCain and Obama and others aren't wrong to fight against earmarks, but this bill's been kicking around for quite a while. And lest anyone think it's only Democrats who do this (which they do), Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has $75 million in earmarks, and Alaska's senior senator (whose name escapes me right now) has $181 million in there in earmarks. Truly, bi-partisan. Let's cut out earmarks in new bills, not in bills that have been worked and reworked for months.
Some ear marks are not pork, but vital projects for a local community. How do you tell the difference between a good pork and bad pork?
Oh how I wish McCain won last year. Go ahead Obama-lovers, flame away.
mccain rocks!! He promised to stop government wasteful spending and even though he didn't win the presidency hes keeping to his word.
Why does everyone hate an earmark until they realize it benefits either themselves, or their community?
Clearly, earmarks should be illegal. Attaching anything to a primary piece of legislation that is designed to be hidden is a dispicable practive, and yet it is as accepted as lobbyists!
7.7 billion dollars is about one fifth the amount of what we are handing to failed automobile companies. Of the 7.7 billion, many "pork" projects are water mains, libraries, highway and bridge development, etc. Not exactly waste. So for the sake of the occasional cheese museum in some powerful congressman;s district, we are going to rewrite how our government works?
I have to hand it to John M. for even trying, but things will not change. This President will have this country so far in debt that our great great great grandchildren will still be paying, and don't give me the Bush BS. This has been going on for the last 60 years. Never before has a President given so many people so much false hope. I wonder what he's going to give away (IE: Jimmy Carter)??
Lets not rush to conclusion. How many of these so called "pork- barrel" projects will result in jobs, purchasing from business and manufacturers, opportunity for small business, and individuals to start new small business'. Some of these so called pet projects will result in opportunities for others to survive. I agree they should be scrutinized closely and weeded out, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Yes Bob, that's the point. Isn't that whatever everyone was clamoring for "change" but not when it it's real change just "sound-bite" change.
1) The problem is it's a cheese museum in MANY districts
2) These cheese museums always run way over budget
3) It's a new cheese museum every 2 years
Over time all those cheese museums really add up, especially considering they are then filled with government employees. Oh, and those employees need healthcare, retirement, and salary increases every year while the rest of us suffer.
I love that idea. No more miscellaneous pork barrel spending. Show us exactly where and what it's being spent on and by us I mean the tax payers actually paying for this crap. Also point out exactly who put this ear mark on this bill so we know exactly what senator pushed this crap onto the bill. Then if it's good spending he gets credit and bad spending will show us where the corruption actually is. It makes so much sense but will never happen as these guys do not want us to know who is lining who's pockets.
I'm glad someone is keeping their promises and fighting for us. It's just a shame McCain didn't win.
Change you can believe in is here! Thanks to all of you that voted for President Obama we now have Speaker Pelosi running the country... I only hope that the nation wakes up before the 2010 elections..