This morning, the DC Examiner, a beltway newspaper, featured an interesting editorial about President Obama’s rhetoric versus actions on earmarks.
The editorial highlights a question from Time Magazine, “Does Obama have a double standard on earmarks?” I am not sure if you caught it, but during the President’s speech to a Joint Session of Congress, he boasted that there were no earmarks (however, earmarks have a multitude of guises) in his $787 billion dollar ‘Big Spending Package’ disguised as “Stimulus.” Yet the President remains quiet when Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats ram a bill through Congress the very next day, neatly stuffed with nearly 9,000 earmarks.
To say that each of these earmarks is ‘worthy’ is complete fantasy, here is a healthy sampling courtesy of the Examiner’s Editorial Department:
“$1.8 million to manage swine manure in Iowa, $190,000 for a “Buffalo Bill Historical Center” in Wyoming, $2.2 million to study grape genetics in New York, $175,000 for “fa?ade improvements” on a dilapidated theater in Pennsylvania, $162,000 for cricket control in Utah, and a total of $41.5 million for the presidential libraries of three former Democratic presidents: FDR, JFK and Lyndon Johnson.”
Nevertheless, the American taxpayer will be on the hook for these projects, worthy or not. President Obama has repeatedly said he “Get’s It,” but perhaps it is time he gets on board with the rest of America on earmark reform. Even Congress is slowly beginning to get the message; this issue is not going away.