Obama To Ban Earmarks From Stimulus Bill

On his second day in Washington, President-elect Obama met with his budget team and promised no earmarks will be in the stimulus plan.

"We are going to ban all earmarks -- the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review," he explained. "We will create an economic recovery oversight board made up of key administration officials and independent advisors to identify problems early and make sure we are doing all we can to solve it."

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Comments

[Over50WhiteWoman]

I am a huge Obama supporter, but I am very disappointed with the tax cut portion of the new package.

Today's Chicago Tribune explained that the tax cut for folks earning between $8,000 and $250,000 will amount to about a $40 boost in each bi-weekly paycheck received by employed taxpayers. They are reducing the withholding amount for Social Security --basically borrowing from the Seniors' funds to give a lousy $20/week to working people. That amounts to a 50 cent an hour increase in pay for people. Not exactly a great stimulus--and of course does nothing to help address the funding problems with Social Security in the future. Worse, for us seniors, there will be no stimulus at all, since we are no longer paying in to social security. Guess they figure we don't need as much--and that is true in a way since we no longer pay for daycare--except for our Alheimer-stricken spouses. We need that relief, too, and I am just really disappointed that we have been left out.

[SethBLiNK]

I hope it does better than the Bailout package... remember the $700billion relief fund that weighed in at $840billion by the time they made it "acceptable" to all the congressional voters.

[Indedave]

An excellent start, Mr. PE, and guaranteed to twist all the nits into knots. I hope that putting lobbyists on the endangered species list is next on your agenda.

[mulliganman]

we will see.

[Petey131]

IF you open your mind and eyes you will see. Usually peeps like you like to remain in darkness = ignorance.

[Dave01]

Good luck with that "ban" on earmarks. This entire bill is one big earmark in and of itself.

[vjoseph]

Great, another faux economist

[Petey131]

Please remember this when you get a stimulus check and return it ASAP!