John McCain and the Tale of the Earmarks

No, not earwigs. Or ear worms.

Earmarks.

Senator John McCain is really rattling the cage this week about "earmarks" -- those special requests in the federal budget that allow lawmakers to get a few hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars here or there for pet projects they claim their constituents need. McCain says he is SOOO against them. And to a certain extent, he's better than many. But he's not pure as the driven snow when it comes to extra money, no matter what his Twitter stream says.

Getting on his soapbox about earmarks is a great political move in this economic climate. When we're all trying to make ends meet, who wouldn't be against federal funds to buy a trolley or to pay for streetscaping? My problem is the whole 'he who lives in glass houses' thing.

McCain likes to split hairs over the definition of an earmark -- he seems to think the term only applies if you're trying to put a spending plan in the budget on the down-low. Somehow, if you're up front about wanting to spend $10 million on some law school facility named for the late Supreme Court Chief Justice (from McCain's home state) William Rehnquist that's OK. Or you shouldn't be painted with the bad brush of federal earmarks if you choose someone like Sarah Palin, a true earmark expert, to be your VP running mate.

It's easy for Senator McCain to make excuses for why his requests and actions should be OK but not others. McCain (or his staff) is on a Twitter campaign to convince us that he has our budget interests at heart and that the Democrats are going on a wild earmark spree!

Don't. You. Believe. It.

Joanne Bamberger is a professional writer and political/social media analyst & consultant. She hangs out around the blogosphere at her political blog, PunditMom, as well as at BlogHer, where she's a contributing editor for News & Politics, and MOMocrats.

Comments

[StevenevetS]

02:50 PM on 03/13/2009

The best plan for earmarks that I have read is available to read or for download at "Taxpayers for Common Sense": http://www.taxpayer.net/

The document is named "Recommendations to the President for Earmark Reform" and is refreshingly sensible.

[DannyDanson]

11:41 AM on 03/13/2009

This is best quantified as George Carlin once posited: "Why is it that their stuff is Sh!$ and our SH!$ is stuff?" This is the old Washington's modus operandi, change has never been mandating bipartisanship in Washington, the GOP would love to create that failure narrative for this administration while obstructing any common sense (non-ideological) approach to civil governance, and the main stream media would gladly ride that ratings ship to 2012, but the Obama Administration's approach is not taking the bait, as long as they continue to speak to the American people like adults highlighting the double-standards and ideological anti-pragmatism that embodies the current GOP the American voter will eventually begin to take notice and listen, at that the chickens will be on their way home to roost. (Great Job GOP! 70 seats in 2012)

[kae]

10:51 PM on 03/12/2009

ooops! I meant to mention Ron Paul's HR 1207 regarding the fed not TARP --that got jumbled

[kae]

10:44 PM on 03/12/2009

Ron Paul schools congress on the need for more earmarks arguing that they provide for more transparency in government....like perhaps if we had earmarked the TARP $$$$ we would have been able to say what the fed could do with ALL the money we gave(?) them.

http://www.voteronpaul.com/newsDetail.php?Ron-Paul-on-the-House-Floor-We-Need-More-Earmarks-3-10-2009-257

[Robert Cantor]

06:03 PM on 03/12/2009

THe curious case of John McCain ... as the last GOP executive candidate he has media cache; but why is he using it so obviously? A repeat in 2012 (shudder!) Legacy remedial action? Or water bearer for the GOP in exile? Opinions please.

[lagumbo]

05:46 PM on 03/12/2009

Joanne great read, but I would like you to find out , how many earmarks John McCain has voted on for his fellow Republicans. He doesn't come up with earmarks ,so he says but please let the readers know how many he has supported since being in congress.

[Beachrunner]

02:27 PM on 03/12/2009

"We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review."

-- Barack Obama, Jan. 6, 2009.

[clarryr]

05:34 PM on 03/12/2009

His proposed legislation to manage earmarks demands a review process. Hopefully Congress will send him a bill he can sign that includes that process. Yet another promise President Obama is keeping. Did you think your quote was some kind of gotcha?

[DannyDanson]

12:06 PM on 03/13/2009

John McCain and the GOP are speaking out against 1% of a 410 Billion dollars bill, the scale of earmarks attached to legislation under this democratic congress has been cut by nearly 50% compared to the previous congress, this dog don't hunt, but you just keep beating it and starve yourselves ok, call it political natural selection. Earmarks serve a peculiar role in the GOP's messaging campaign, other than the culture warfare, earmark reform creates one of the only contexts for the injection of expedient political cynicism into the debate that is capable of making ground with working class, white, rura,l non college educated, "Reagan Democrats" and "disaffected Republicans" they are losing thier base because the truth is that earmarks are not responsible for the crisis that we find ourselves in currently, this crisis was caused by the GOP's anti-regulatory pandering to the portion of their base that historically have funded their political aspirations (i.e John Thane and the other executives in the SnakeOil 200M a year club)

[glitz]

01:15 PM on 03/12/2009

So far the only true definition of an "earmark" seems to be if any other State but mine gets money, or if anyone else submits a request but me...it's an "earmark". All of the screaming just seems to be another way for Republicans to measure their body parts to constantly prove their importance..especially the "I am a hero", John McCain.

[hopefulinpa]

01:03 PM on 03/12/2009

Why is it this is the only thing this man can talk about - earmarks? He wanted to be the president! And let's not forget how he postponed the debate to rush back to Washington to save our collapsing economy! This man cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. He has a one track mind.. earmarks! I pray that this man is not reelected. He is such a hypocrit. What has he ever done for Arizona? I don't know except for gambling on the Indian reservations... which benefited him and his cronies.

[clarryr]

11:36 AM on 03/12/2009

If Senator McCain was serious about the earmarks he would have convinced the Senate and House, especially the Republican side, to remove their earmarks before sending the Omnibus Bill to the White House. He promised in his campaign to expose the earmarkerss and make them famous.

Instead, the bill passed with Republican support and sent to the White House the day that the current spending bill ran out. This was a setup for the President. If you don't sign it, the government will need to pass emergency legislation to extend current spending. If you do sign it, you're breaking your promise about earmark legislation. If he had vetoed the bill, the 2009 budget process would have started over, adding yet another major headache to the already full agenda. Remember the Republicans were complaining last week that the President was doing to much, yet they challenged him to veto this bill and add more work to do. Pure political posturing.

[bob8jv]

03:29 AM on 03/12/2009

The American people are confident in our economy believing without doubt that it will turn around. The American people overwhelmingly support President Obama, his administration, and his policies. We believe that when his major investment areas show positive signs, then the economy will turn around very quickly. What we fear most is that congress is still dysfunctional and they will fight too dilute or block Barack outstanding investment policies which could result in dire consequences for our economy and our national security. Our economy cannot wait for Congress to settle long drawn out battles, like the stimulus & recovery bill, battling over earmarks. Barack will tackle earmarks and other problems at the right time. Congress needs to use some common sense. He cannot resolve all the problems overnight. It will take time. It will take a miracle to restore Congress to a reasonable healthy state.

[BuzzingAlong]

11:33 PM on 03/11/2009

EARMARK HYPOCRISY?
Posted: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 2:56 PM by Mark Murray
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/03/11/1832273.aspx

Of the 35 U.S. senators who opposed the omnibus spending bill in the form of a "no" on the cloture vote -- 28 of them had solo earmarks in the legislation.

In total, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, these 28 senators had a combined 307 solo earmarks totaling nearly $240 million.

Here's the breakdown (check out how many OF THEM ARE REPUBLICAN)

Barrasso (4 earmarks, $2.7 million)

Bayh (4 earmarks, $1.2 million)

Bennett (23 earmarks, $18 million)

Brownback (21 earmaks, $12 million)

Bunning (5 earmarks, $735,000)

Burr (3 earmarks, $1.3 million)

Chambliss (7 earmarks, $4.3 million)

Collins (1 earmark, $380,000)

Corker (1 earmark, $760,000)

Cornyn (5 earmarks, $2.5 million)

Crapo (1 earmark, $100,000)

Enzi (5 earmarks, $1.7 million)

Graham (14 earmarks, $9.5 million)

Grassley (8 earmarks, $350,000)

Gregg (19 earmarks, $10 million)

Hatch (7 earmarks, $700,000)

Hutchison (35 earmarks, $9.9 million)

Inhofe (34 earmarks, $53 million)

Isakson (2 earmarks, $1.4 million)

Kyl (3 earmarks, $5 million)

Lugar (10 earmarks, $3.3 million)

Martinez (8 earmarks, $18.8 million)

McConnell (36 earmarks, $51 million)

Roberts (11 earmarks, $2.2 million)

Sessions (12 earmarks, $4.3 million)

Thune (6 earmarks, $4.3 million)

Vitter (16 earmarks, $4 million)

Voinovich (6 earmarks, $13.5 million)

[consideration]

09:49 PM on 03/11/2009

If you want to balance the budget, then raise taxes!

[schatsie]

07:31 AM on 03/12/2009

Well, think about it... We have thousands of people being murdered each year in our streets...Hitler confiscated wealth from those he didn't like (or who did not go along with him)...The inheritances taxes on the wealthy could be PREPAID..... That is what Trump suggested years ago when the debt was 5 trillion, that if the rich kicked in 10% of their wealth, then we would not have the deficit....

And Madoff is the same as Charles Keating and ENRON....RACKETEERS, Gamblers, Criminals, FRAUDS... and the offshore tax people that is FRAUD also and there is NO restriction on the time frame for that....

[roald]

11:25 AM on 03/12/2009

OK. There are many ways to raise taxes...Eliminate deductions and loopholes, flat increases, progressive increases, regressive increases, selective taxation - sin taxes as an example, and the list goes on.

A problem to that approach is there is an upper limit - 100% taxation. An alternative is to increase the overall wealth, allowing more revenue to be realized at the same tax rate. There are many theories on how to increase overall wealth and that it the surface reasoning behind all of the fighting.

[RenoSage]

07:14 PM on 03/11/2009

This budget bill was crafted last fall, which was Bush's responsibility. It was passed without much
editing as written. One can't operate the country without the budget. At least the pork was bipartisan.

The next budget will be Obama's. He currently rejects earmarks. Stay tuned.

[oldgeek1]

06:23 PM on 03/11/2009

John does not mention the clout that he exerts for Federal activities in his state, making earmarks unnecessary.

[MaryK2924]

02:04 PM on 03/13/2009

Of course not, maybe his democratic opponent will.