Keith Olbermann spoke about this last night........ Earmark of the Beast: We told you yesterday of the Republican Party's phoney-baloney righteous outrage over Mr. Obama's budget for the next fiscal year, the 12 months starting in October. Tonight, in our fourth story on the Countdown, the party of fiscal conservatism, now in a lather about the bill, called the Omnibus spending bill... to fund the government from this Friday, up until October. Why? Because the bill contains earmarks, which are, as we know, the work of Satan. Are the earmarks wasteful? Well, wait til you hear who put them in the bill. No, the real problem is that mean old President Obama promised to end earmarks forever! And when that promise broke, it did so, so loudly...It even woke-up Senator John McCain.
[video of McCain in the Senate where he claims to be angry regarding earmarks] According to the non partisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense, the 410 billion dollar Omnibus Spending Bill contains 8570 attributed earmarks totaling 7.7 billion dollars which is less than 2% of total spending. Sure, but it's still 7.7 billion dollars. At least some of that spending, which McCain lamented yesterday would seem to have self apparent explanations. Why would LA and LA alone need tattoo removal funding to decrease violence? Why single out Hawaii for expenditures in astronomy? Because Mr McCain, gangs are to LA what clear skies are to Hawaii. Still Mr McCain's implicaton merits a response. Is this the change Mr Obama promised? First, the bill was negotiated by democrats and republicans in December. Second, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense the earmark total is down 1/2 billion from last year. Third, that 7.7 billion total in earmarks? Mr Obama's campaign promise was that he would limit earmarks to the total earmarks of 1994. Let's see, what was the earmark total of 1994 again? Oh yeah, 7.8 billion! Calculus, this ain't! Fourth, in 2006, the 2006.....the last of several years of republican earmark orgies, Congressional earmarks totaled 29 billion! And fifth, even with everything else going on, less than 2 months into it's very existence, the Obama White House is already in talks with congressional democrats to reform the earmark process. An announcement is expected by the time Mr Obama signs the omnibus bill. And now we come to the hypocrisy portion of our program. To his credit, Mr McCain has none of these earmarks, to his credit the Senator has called out his own party for their own ear-malarky - more about that in a moment. To his discredit, McCain may not request earmarks but he does vote for them when he wants to.....when conservative or house members got sweetners added to win their votes during the 700 billion dollar bank bailout last year, when congressional earmarks were tacked on to funding for the Iraq war. McCain also supports some specific earmarks such as military housing, foreign aid for Israel, even praising some venues at which he appeared during his campaign despite the fact that they got their funding from earmarks! And then there are McCain's buddies like Joe Lieberman who is getting 44 million in earmarks from this one. And his fellow campaign advisor Lindsey Graham, 41 million in earmarks in this deal. Both Graham and Liebermann well ahead of, for instance, the raging socialist, Bernie Sanders. McCain rightly points his finger at his party leaders, so we will too........Senate republican whip Jon Kyl, so twisted on this issue, we're saving it for best persons later in this news hour but how about Senate republican leader Mitch McConnell? He not only campaigned specifically last year on his record of dragging earmarks back to his state of Kentucky but this year, now, his name is on more than 75 million earmarks and 50 million of that is in the budget only because he, and he alone, put it there! And his big GOP task force on earmark reform? It's recommendations were never adopted by the, uh, Senate Republican Conference. The number 1 earmarker in Congress is Republican Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi spending 76 million all by his own self and a whopping 471 million when you include earmarks also requested by other Senators. 471! Republicans making up 3 of the top 5 earmarkers and 6 of the top 10. In fact, 40% of the omnibus bill earmarks are republican earmarks and if you tell yourself, they only have a 40% in the Senate so that makes it pretty much even, consider this: according to number crunching at Huffington Post, when you look at individual earmarks (those in which only one Senator is responsible), democrats account for 677 million in earmark spending. Republicans? 669 million, nearly the same amount. The problem for republicans in this math? It takes 57 democrats to spend that much but only 40 republicans!! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#29498707 ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 3:18 PM Subject: {Dawgs/Dittos} Budget confusion > > > There's some confusion out there about the budget the congress is > talking and will vote on soon.... > > THIS budget is for April 1,2009 till Sept31st,2009.....It was written > WAY before Obama became President.... > The Federal budget runs from October 1 till the next Oct1..... > > The reason this is being voted on now is because the congress decided to > pass only half of it last year for some reason... > > Yes, it has about 8000+- earmarks put in there by many congresspeople > including Obama who was an Illinois senator at the time. He is NOT going > to fight the earmarks because it would cause undo delay etc at this > time....McCain tried to get an admendment to cut all the earmarks, it > was defeated....Colburn is nitpicking this or that earmark but let's > remember that the total amount of earmarks once again represents about > 1% > of the entire package.....!! > > > So when you hear republicans screaming about earmarks and Obama not > following what he said about them, this is the reason..not his > budget...a bush inspired budget....a fight about them could close down > the government like the republicans did one year several times.....not a > good plan considering the trouble we're in.... > ++++++++ > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WebTV Dawgs/Dittos" group. 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