Why grandma, what big earmarks you have!

Davegator,

I never claimed Obama never put an earmark on a bill. What he can be admired for is calling for total transparency in the earmark process. No more anonymously or secretly tacking on pork.

90 million dollars? Are you kidding? Here is some persepective:

Washington Post Newsflash: Obama's Earmarks Cost 0.003 Percent of Federal Spending

The Washington Post took its crusade against earmarks to the front page yesterday, highlighting the earmarks supported by the leading presidential candidates. Obviously the Washington Post really really doesn't like earmarks, but is there any reason that the general public should share its obsessions?

The article never puts the size of the earmarks discussed into any context, thereby leading readers to wrongly believe that congressional earmarks are a major factor in the federal budget and the deficit. For example, it could have described the earmarks supported by Obama as 0.003 percent of the federal budget or alternatively their cost is 30 cents per person in tax dollars per year.

Another useful metric is the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The earmarks supported by Senator Obama are equal to 0.05 percent of the cost of these wars. The money committed to these earmarks would fund the wars for about 5 hours.

--Dean Baker

So McCain has zero earmarks. Of course he'll need to save his shekels to pay for his hundred years war. I calculate that if Barack Obama spends 90 million a year in earmarks, John McCain will spend 155 BILLION on his war every year for a hundred years.

Read this for a fair assessment of how Obama stacks up to McCain on earmarks:

Huffington Post:

"According to the report, Hillary Clinton ranked number 9 in Senate earmarkers with $342,403,455 in earmarks (almost all of them in conjunction with other lawmakers, which is an easy way to gain cover). She was the leading earmark recipient among senators not on the Senate Appropriations Committee, showing how devoted she is to getting earmarks. Obama, by contrast, only supports earmarks for schools and hospitals, and ranked in the bottom quarter of senators with $91 million in earmarks.

Unlike Clinton, Obama has gotten legislation passed to require a searchable database for earmarks to make government more accountable. (Clinton opposed Obama's proposal to have all earmark requests made public, not just the earmarks that are approved; Obama is one of only two senators who release all of their earmark requests.)

McCain deserves credit for opposing all earmarks and refusing to request any of them. But Obama's position (trying to fix a flawed system while still requesting money for his state) is more honest. Obama could simply let Dick Durbin request money for Illinois and keep his hands clean, as McCain allows his colleagues to request earmarks while standing by and never challenging them. Instead, Obama tries to make the system more honest even while he's a part of it.

As this report from the Democratic Party notes, McCain also does pork barrel legislation, just not through earmarks. Among other things, in 2006 McCain sought $10 million for the launch of a University of Arizona center honoring William Rehnquist. In 2003, McCain got $14.3 million added to a bill that wasn't requested by the military for an Arizona Air Force base. And McCain's chief fundraising strategist, Tom Loeffler, is a lobbyist whose job is to get pork from DC."