thinkprogress.org — of course, earmarks have very little to do with the current financial crisis ? one that is actually rooted in bad mortgages and crashing credit markets. But that doesn?t seem to stop McCain from thinking it does.
Sep 26, 2008 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountSep 26, 2008
Still trying to play the American people for idiots.
magus_melchiorSep 26, 2008
'As lawmakers know, earmarks, which make up less up less than 1 percent of the federal budget, have incalculable political value. Congressional leaders award or withhold them to reward or punish lawmakers. Incumbents like to use federal money to curry favor with donors and constituents.In fact, Representative Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who has crusaded against earmarks, said when Republicans ran Congress, “we honed the practice.”But complaining about earmarks is much easier when your party is not writing the spending bills.“I worry that earmark reform is something that Congressional minorities will always be the only ones to call for, kind of like a balanced budget,” said Brian M. Riedl, a critic of earmarks at the conservative Heritage Foundation. '<a class="user" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/washington/29earmark.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/washington/29ear ...</a>If McCain's going to complain about government spending, earmark reforms aren't the way to do it.
homercles337Sep 26, 2008
What a f**king idiot. It has already been well documented that 42% of the deficit is due to tax cuts. This man has NO CLUE!
hawkeye17Sep 26, 2008
McCain has jumped the shark from being goofy to being dangerous.
jenniferinmoSep 27, 2008
Some earmarks are important. One example that comes to mind is relevant. I just moved from St. Louis and several interstate highways pass over the Mississippi at that point. East St. Louis, Illinois is a very poor city and the City of St. Louis has little money and a ton of infrastructure challenges. The bridges over the river are neglected by both Illinois and Missouri yet there is a ton of interstate traffic which goes over those bridges every day. St. Louis and East St. Louis need help to keep traffic flowing and that benefits the millions of trucks which drive over those bridges going from coast to coast. Making earmarks the focal point is stupid. Eliminating them all would prevent much needed infrastructure projects from happening and even if they were all eliminated it would be such a small amount as to not help.It is clear from the debate that Obama will evaluate the budget program by program whereas McCain jumps to "hatchet" jobs (aptly pointed out by Obama) like a spending freeze. The spending freeze is another example of McCain's lack of understanding and brainless attempts to sound good. Anything across the board is harmful and just plain dumb. Haven't we had dumb in office for long enough? How about a President this time who can deal with complex problems?
bishkekbuddySep 27, 2008
Gee, I'm glad SOMEONE can read McCain's mind because he sure can't!