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Funny Math
From Friday's debate:
Jim Lehrer: Are there fundamental differences between your approach and Senator Obama's approach to what you would do as president to lead this country out of the financial crisis?
John McCain: Well, the first thing we have to do is get spending under control in Washington...You know, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. I don't know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue, but the fact is that it was $3 million of our taxpayers' money.
I'm sure that the bear paternity routine had the audience rolling on
the floor the first time John used it, but someone please explain to
him that jokes go stale after several hundred repetitions. (And after
you've explained it to John, please explain it to my dad, thanks.) But
let's take his point seriously and consider the impact of the bear
study on our economy.
Case 1: Bear Study
Cost: $3 million
Percentage of budget*: 0.0001%
Average cost to taxpayers**: 3 cents
3
cents? Thanks, John. I'll put it in the bank as soon as I get it. That
should give Citigroup some capital to work with. But I'm not being
fair. John McCain isn't suggesting that canceling the bear study will
save the economy. He wants to cut all the earmarks:
Case 2: Earmarks
Cost: $18 billion
Percentage of budget: 0.6%
Average cost to taxpayers: $194
There's a campaign slogan for you: Elect John McCain, Save $194.
Of course, that would be disingenuous because the tax burden isn't
distributed evenly. Most taxpayers would save less than $100. How about
this? Elect John, McCain, Cut the Budget by Half a Percent. Still doesn't really resonate. And how does that $18 billion compare to a $700 billion bailout? Talk to us, John.
John McCain: I hear this all the time. "It's only $18 billion." Do you know that it's tripled in the last five years?
Holy, moly! At that rate, in five years, it will be $54 billion. That's a lot of bear studies.*** But hold on a sec. That $18 billion in earmarks figure is from 2005, which was three years ago. In 2008, there have been $16.5 billion in earmarks. Huh. So over the past five years it tripled, but over the past three years, it declined. Can we get some clarity here? John?
John McCain: I suggest that people go up on the Web site of Citizens Against Government Waste, and they'll look at those projects.
Great idea. Let's go.
Case 3: Triple the Pork
2003: $22.5 billion
2008: $17.2 billion
Uh...John?
That's not tripling we can believe in. Don't get me wrong. I'd be happy
to get back whatever money the government manages to save from your
reforms. Or it can keep the money and pay down the debt--I'm down. But
what does any of this have to do with the economic crisis? We're facing
a $700 billion bailout and a potential recession of historic
proportions, and you're telling us jokes about a $3 million bear study.
I think you're joking all right but not about the bear study. And I
have to tell you, it's not funny.
P.S. I know that you don't
have much patience for economic theory, but you might want to ask one
of your economic geniuses about Keynes.
Cutting infrastructure spending and pursuing a balanced budget during a
recession is generally regarded as a really bad idea. Some food for thought:
The initial government response to the Great Depression was ineffective, as President Hoover insisted that the economy was sound and that prosperity would soon return...Convinced that a balanced federal budget was essential to restoring business confidence, Hoover sought to cut government spending and raise taxes. But in the face of a collapsing economy, this served only to reduce demand further. As conditions worsened, Hoover’s administration eventually provided emergency loans to banks and industry, expanded public works, and helped states offer relief. But it was too little, too late.
* The Federal budget in '08 was about 2.9 trillion dollars.
** About 140 million Americans filed income taxes last year, of which about one third paid nothing, leaving approximately 93 million taxpayers.
*** $54 million would pay for 18,000 bear DNA studies.
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Comments (58)
But what was the body language when this exchange took place?
September 28, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ghengis: You should rename yourself "G-Diddy."
re: http://www.dagblog.com/potpourri/name-blogger#comments
September 28, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
No G, you're right. The Republicans suck at math. And economics. That brilliant beacon of theirs, Reagan, also sucked at economics.
The more I think about his railing on about earmarks, which was the only thing he actually talked about in detail, the more pissed I got. What will you have to change in light of the financial crisis? A friggin spending freeze? (And no. That was part of your plan BEFORE.)
I think from now on debates should be equipped with buzzers and dingers. (Two extremely technical terms.) It's all about entertainment these days, politics is, so let's turn the debates into game shows. ZZZZZZZZZ. I'm sorry, that's the wrong answer. You have one lifeline to use. You may call your VP pick only once during the debate. Make sure you use it wisely!
Here John. Let me help you out. You want to know where we can recoup that money for the bailout? In January, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that extending the Bush tax cuts would cost more than $700 billion in the next five years.
And earmarks?
$2,820,000 for Violence Against Women Prevention and Prosecution Programs - Native American/Native Alaskan Liaison Office -- Native American and Native Alaskan women are faced with extraordinarily high incidences of violence. Within funds provided, the amended bill directs $2,820,000 to the State of Alaska for the Native American/Native Alaskan Liaison Office to provide services to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence in Alaska. (From our dear friend Ted Stevens. Or, better yet, ask Palin about this one.)
$3,900,000 Department of Agriculture. To fund fire risk reduction activities by Fire Safe Council chapters in California
$24,000 Department of Health and Human Services. For abstinence education and related services in Waynesboro, Pa.
$2,162,000 Department of Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration – United Mine Workers of America - Funding for classroom and simulated mine rescue training for mine rescue teams to increase the skills and preparedness for mine rescue teams, as well as training first responders in a mine emergency.
$195,000,000, Department of Transportation - For emergency repairs and reconstruction of the Interstate I'35W bridge located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that collapsed on August 1, 2007.
$27,362,000. Corps of Engineers – Mississippi River Levees.
$9,919,000, International Assistance Programs - for scholarships and direct support of American Educational Institutions in Lebanon.
$267,000 NASA - Pittsburgh Engineering Initiatives, Pittsburgh, PA, to further development of regenerative treatments for astronauts.
$300,000, SBA – Women’s Business Development Center in Ct. (From my own dear Senator Lieberman)
$750,000, NARA - For the repair, alteration, and improvement of archives facilities, and to provide adequate storage for holdings in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.
Seriously. What happens to these types of projects? (I might add, I purposely chose some I don’t personally find necessary.) Will you cut them off altogether? Decrease spending for them? Allocate them through other means than earmarks? Recommend state or local governments fund them? What if they can't? Because it seems to me that certain infrastructure spending, research spending, and other important investments are currently funded through earmarks. Murtha, I suspect, is one of those McCain would “make famous”. He takes it to an extreme, of course. But you know what? The people of Johnstown love him. Because it’s a once-bustling city that has been devastated by economic outsourcing and natural disasters. And it’s lost in the middle of Pennsylvania, somewhere in between Pittsburgh and Philly. The city was impoverished and its residents watched the youth move out and people forget it. 24% unemployment in the 80s. Drive through Johnstown sometime, and you’ll see a Murtha highway, a Murtha cancer center, and a Murtha airport. Now, I don’t particularly care for the way Murtha goes about his earmark business. But the point to be made is that cutting off all earmarks (which pales in comparison next to this freeze all spending business) is that actual people benefit from some of these. What seems more important is an efficient use of money (as is always the case in all government expenditures) rather than no use of money.
September 28, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only thing that made me happy about McCain talking "earmarks" was that polling apparently shows that the vast majority of Americans either don't know what they are, or couldn't care less. And thus, that the longer McCain talked about Earmarks, the more he lost chances to gain in the debate. Mortgages, credit cards, cars, jobs, pensions, health care - they get.
But you're right, still an incredible thing for a nation to listen to this kind of utter ear-shit when a crisis is underway.
September 28, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't know how correct you are, Hilary.
Many posters here have an all-or-nothing mentality. But earmarks aren't inherently bad and neither party has a lock on the good or the bad ones.
Earmarks are the way that government works, the problem is that you only hear about the abusive ones. Thanks to the Dems making an anti-meme of earmarks, Congress has dried up most of them.
That means the money will go to other things (you didn't think it was coming back to you, did you?) -- and it won't be going to pay down the debt.
It also means that mean critical projects for the nation, some involving small businesses, are trashed -- possibly permanently due to inconsistent funding.
September 28, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would disagree here. Earmarks are inherently bad. The purposes for which they are requested often are not.
September 28, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Roo. Could you elaborate?
Even if you think the funding that is currently allocated through earmarks should be allocated differently, the real point here is that no money is saved in a different form of allocation.
September 28, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well stated.
September 28, 2008 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Roo... do you live in some crystalline land of pure reason? I spent some time in the land where budgets were made. There was NO budgetary process or tool that in any way/shape/form matched up with how rational policy-making and budgetting should occur. So why are earmarks the goat, and others the sheep?
September 28, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Earmarks are an effective solution to distribution. If you think that it's trivial to get one, without lots of oversight and inspection, you need to rethink your understanding of how the government works.
As I said, you only hear about the crazy ones. Would you shut down NASA's budget for the $600 toilet seat?
Scalpels are required, not hatchets.
I suggest you sit down with your Congressional Rep and have a discussion on this. Your eyes might be opened.
September 28, 2008 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hilary made a good point about the value of earmarks, but I agree with roo_P. The problem with earmarking is not the content but the process. OMB defines earmarks as follows:
The transparency of the earmarking process has improved, thanks in part to Obama's Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act, but there's still no good reason why these allocations shouldn't go through the standard competitive process.
September 28, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, sure. OMB would hate the earmark process, obviously -- it guts their own power.
September 28, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aren't you cherry picking among three definitions each of which is listed in the alternative ("or")?
Take this one: "specifies the location or recipient."
Now, given the choice between my Congressperson deciding between an MRI unit in one city hospital as against a proton therapy machine in another and some bureaucrat at HHS making the decision, I'll take my Congressman who knows the local needs and who'll be talking directly to each hospital director involved and --
Won't have to pass the decision through OMB at the White House to allow it to "control critical aspects of the funds allocation process."
September 28, 2008 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another excellent example of earmarks being appropriate.
September 28, 2008 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course you will. He or she is your congressperson, and it's your district. But maybe the hospital with the greatest need isn't in your district. I'll take the bureaucrat who chooses the recipient without regard to pleasing some constituency (or worse, some fundraiser).
September 28, 2008 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
But I accept the charge of cherrypicking the definition. If an allocation specifies the recipient but goes through the normal competitive process, I'm not as concerned about it.
September 28, 2008 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not that the idea needs to be further demonstrated. But a good graph here that is a striking visual of the absurdity of it all:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/9908
September 28, 2008 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Awesome link
September 28, 2008 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, in the interest of fairness, let us remember that the Dems were the ones that put all this on the table in 2006.
Of course, the Dems had a point, but as usual, the bleating refrain came back as "Earmarks = Bad"
You have to look in wonder as the Dems/GOP have flipped on this issue in the last two years.
It is doubtful that earmarks would have come up with McCain had it not been used so effectively in 2006.
September 28, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually have no problem with McCain's crusade against earmarks. I hope that he continues his crusade as a Senator. But reforming earmarks has nothing to do with the current fiscal crisis and would have very limited impact on the deficit.
September 28, 2008 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
This
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/09/funny-math.php#comment-3137920
should have appeared in this space.
September 28, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, wait, I finally get McCain's joke about the bear DNA. No wait, I really don't.
Not only are the earmarks not a major issue for the budget, as Genghis says, but most of the time when I'm handed a list of "pork barrel" projects I think that most of them seem perfectly reasonable. The government should totally be supporting DNA research.
September 28, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with this.
However, I can assure you the earmarks do get vetted by Congressional reps. Occasionally the vetting is lubricated by money, but most times it's because the cause has merit.
Simple example: you have new technology that can help -- pick one -- soldiers in Iraq, protecting borders from nuclear material, conserving water. Often times the newness of the ideas fail the committee approach, where the output of many people (all with varying agendas) is guaranteed to be tepid at best.
Kiss the idea goodbye.
Instead, you appeal to your congressional rep -- which is a vetting process in and of itself. Once the legislative assistant thinks you are for real, and you present solid information on what the idea can do, provide backing materials, etc., you engage your congressional rep. He then calls upon trusted national experts to examine the idea. Idea can truly be vetted, congressional rep signs off on it.
Voila! Money.
This is how your government works.
September 28, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why can't the congressional rep present the idea to the committee along with the expert support?
September 28, 2008 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
What committee?
The committee that already rejected the new idea?
Also, Congress Reps do not just "show up" at your doorstep -- that is an irritating abuse of power, and come back to bite you.
Politics has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with organizing principles based on the reptilian brain.
September 28, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Basically, you seem to be saying that if the committee rejects the request, you go to your rep and get them to use their influence with the committee chair to push the request through the backdoor. How is that a better way to measure the merit of the request than the front door, and why wouldn't you contact your rep before the request goes to committee?
Think of it this way. There are a lot of good requests competing for money. Put discretion in the hands of individual reps and guess what, you're going to get a lot of allocations that happen to benefit the districts of the reps with the most power. That's not a good way to make sure that the most important requests are funded.
September 28, 2008 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh... no, that's not how it works.
There are so many things wrong with your comment, that I'd rather talk with you over a beer about it.
First of all: money, as I said below, in the budget comes in different colors.
Second: Committees are notoriously bad at rewarding decent ideas. Your simple example can easily be turned around on you. You've just invented a way to track suitcase nuclear weapons. But you are in a small school, like a community college. How much play do you think you would get in a committee used to seeing proposals from Harvard, Stanford, or University of Illinois?
Third: Often times, your idea won't fit a preconceived program to which to apply to. Then what?
The fact of the matter is, I don't know if you've ever raised money for any project or venture before, but if you did, you would be aware that the *last* way you would try is earmark. It's a ridiculously hard way of doing things. But it does provide a measure of last resort to fund good projects or ventures in the national interest.
Lastly, despite "anyone on the Internet can be anyone", my arguments stem not from theoretical or hypothetical views of the system. I've been there.
Just like Obama. Which is why he uses earmarks as well.
September 28, 2008 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I fully believe that legislative committees reject good ideas and that earmarks are an option for requests that fail in committee. But I do not believe that that the earmark process (if it can even be called a process) is a rational and efficient method for approving meritorious requests. Nothing that you have written has led me to believe otherwise.
September 29, 2008 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course nothing I have written will convince you. Just as some folks stubbornly cling to the idea that Bush isn't doing a bad job or that Bill Clinton's tepid responses about Obama don't exist. And you still are railing against the heavens for issues to be discussed in depth at the debates. This is similar: you simply state you don't believe it is efficient. That's a wonderful belief, but you have no proof of your statement as a logical deduction.
And the fact that you keep assuming I am referring to legislative committees indicates a lack of understanding about the basics of the process. Therefore it's very difficult for me to explain it to you -- it's like I'm talking in English and you are listening in French.
The fact remains, you are commenting on a process that you don't fully understand or appreciate, and can't be found in textbooks. But it is the way the system, and the world, works.
I hope you tell your local Obama rep that you are disappointed that Obama, too, uses earmarks. Maybe you can get an explanation on why people in the government - on both sides of the aisle - recognize their importance (with appropriate oversight, of course).
September 29, 2008 3:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Um not exactly. Nothing you have said has convinced me otherwise because you have not told me anything about the earmarking selection process (such as it is), but simply keep repeating about how you know so much and I know so little. It's like I'm speaking French, and you haughtily criticize my accent and tell me how better your French is. So please educate us owe enlightened one. What is the method by which earmarks are selected? What vetting is there other than what a single rep--with a bias towards his own constituency and donors--who happens to be in a position of power within the Legislature, decides is important? Why is this a system that I should trust? I encourage you to try to leave out the condescension, despite your disdain for my ignorance and blockheadedness.
September 29, 2008 8:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
"owe"???
September 29, 2008 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is any system a system you should trust, Genghis?
Have you ever been involved in a budgetary process?
You seem to have a romantic notion that somehow "powerful" people or states get earmarks leaving out others. Take a look at this list:
http://earmarks.omb.gov/2008-appropriations-by-state/summary.html
http://earmarks.omb.gov/2008-appropriations-by-agency/summary.html
Money is not particularly concentrated by any state or agency and at first glance appears to be in proportion to the size of the state or agency. As Hilary pointed out, this is distributing a small fraction of the US budget as a sum of individual projects/ventures.
The fact is that an earmark is your voice in Congress during the budgetary process. Otherwise only those reps sitting on the Appropriations committees would be distributing the money. Again, oversight is always necessary to prevent abuse.
As far as your claim of condescension, you are the one that introduced the professorial tone into the debate ("think of it this way") or making emphatic cases for things which you, by your own admission, do not fully understand.
September 29, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
According to your link, Alaska gets more money in earmarks than New York despite having 1/30th of the population. That seems to qualify as "concentration," but maybe I don't understand the definition of the word. I also found a nice graph that represents the per capita distribution of earmarks. It's easier for cretins like me to understand:
http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/SxNb-HsOtha6n3U0hxw0H2-
In the diagram, New York sort of looks like one of Alaska's moons. And come to think of it, I recall hearing about some Alaska legislators who pushed earmarks that favored their donors.
I trust systems that maximize merit and minimize favoritism and arbitrariness. So please explain to this ignorant New Yorker why I should trust a system that, based on my poor limited understanding, appears to arbitrarily favor residents of other states.
Or you can just tell me how ignorant I am again. I enjoy that.
September 29, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, Genghis, the faux-modesty ploy is sort of beneath you. Your calling yourself a "cretin" to imply that I did is not in the spirit of actual debate.
The graph you posted shows how AK abused the system. And your point is...what? Throw out a system because a particular Senator abused it? I note that the abuse was so bad, the Senator is currently being formally charged.
People have scams with HUD money. Shall we cut those programs as well? I mean, that system is abused, right?
Your graph of per capita dollars is a poor metric. Why? Because you would find a similar shaped graph of the electoral votes per capita. In other words, each congressional rep can get in so many dollars of earmarks, and so it's not surprising that in smaller states the per capita is higher.
To my eye, however, your graph, shows a roughly even distribution of *programs* across the states as the more populated states tend to have few per capita dollars. This is what one might expect in the absence of abuse. This is exact on a per year basis? Obviously not. But I would bet that over a long period of time, you would find roughly the same amount of total dollars being spent on each state on average.
September 29, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
The faux modesty is snark in return for the condescension, which you've finally dropped, and so I'll drop the faux modesty.
The correlation between state size and per capita benefits is the point. Earmarks give individual legislators a lot of power to channel money to their own states and districts. In the Senate, this inevitably favors the small states because of disproportionate representation. In the House, the allocation goes to the individual districts. Since certain congressman have more power to get earmarks written, particularly members of the Appropriations Committees and other committee chairs with influence to trade, certain districts with powerful congresspeople get more money. Alaska only has one district, powerful Senators (including Stevens as the former Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee) and a powerful Congressman, so it did very well, especially under a Republican majority. The district of Jerry Lewis, former Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, also did well, but that didn't help the other 53 districts in CA.
It's not just me saying this. From the Sunlight Foundation:
Here's a great evenhanded blog that provides some details on the earmark process:
http://www.llrx.com/congress/earmark1.htm
http://www.llrx.com/congress/earmark2.htm
September 29, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
You comment only goes to show that the Appropriations Committee is very powerful -- and so what happens if you aren't a member?
September 29, 2008 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hanging off my own comment so that this column doesn't get any smaller.
From what I understand, and I'm just going off what I've read today, to write in an earmark, you need to be on the Conference Committee. From the Sunlight Foundation:
The Appropriations Committee Chairperson is always included in the Conference Committee, which is why it's such a powerful position, but high rank on other committees helps, depending on the bill.
Even if you're not on the Conference Committee, you can get a member of the Committee to write in an earmark for you. But you need to have something to trade, which is why Coburn calls earmarks the "trading currency" of Congress. And the higher rank you have on choice committees, the more you have to trade.
Thus, high ranking Legislators, especially in the majority party and particularly those on the Appropriations Committee, have the ability to get more earmarks for their districts. That's what makes the process arbitrary.
September 29, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, not all money has the same color. So the earmarks come from a different pot than, say, DOD, NSF, EPA, USGS, etc.
September 28, 2008 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
BTW, unrelated, but there was a good NYT article today that touches on the issues that we debated in my Lead! post the other day.
September 28, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps this explanation of earmarks will help clarify the issues for my illustrious colleagues, Genghis and Clearthinker.
http://www.slate.com/id/2139454/
September 29, 2008 5:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
He's going to stay in Bear Joke Mode for 100 years.
September 28, 2008 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pity it ain't a very funny one.
September 28, 2008 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny math is endemic in politics, but lately it has been mostly conservatives using it. The point is to make numbers seem important by themselves, without comparing to anything else.
An example is McCain's 45 nuclear reactors. This is a large number, representing 50-100 gigawatts of capacity, but it looks less impressive when we note there is roughly 200Gw going up a factory smokestacks as waste heat, and it could be captured for really cheap, and it could be online in a year or two, not 15-20 years.
Another cheat someone here tried was showing a Brookings study that assigns a $3.4 trillion addition to national debt due to Obama tax cuts, while ignoring the $5 trillion due to McCain proposals.
September 28, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both sides get slippery big time -- math is used as a convenience only. I don't think either side can say they play better or not.
Both sides are *vastly* underestimating the costs to get us back in terms of cheap energy.
As a trivial example: Obama wants an "Apollo sized" program for energy. Between 1962-1969, the US spent roughly $220B total on Apollo -- and that's only 8 years. Obama is proposing a $150B budget over 10 years. So already, he is too low -- and that's not counting for inflation 10 years form now. So already, we see the cost coming in lower than the size of the program he envisions.
Both sides tell us they want us to be energy independent. I've yet to see the math to show how this is possible.
As the numbers get bigger, average people have less and less of a clue to how to relate to them. As a result, a "million" ends up sounding larger than "trillion". And herein lies the trickery.
September 28, 2008 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The first thing I have to say is "earmark my eye."
Of course, reforming the earmark system will have no effect on the economy whatsoever. It's a shameless distraction. John Dickerson explained it well recently in Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2199757/
"The larger problem with this anti-earmarks strategy is that they don't amount to much. Earmarks represent just $16 billion of the 2008 budget. Yes, that's a lot of money, but it's not everything. McCain makes it seem like earmarks are central to the federal government. In Fairfax, he blamed earmarks for high food and gasoline prices and the trouble that many homeowners face in making mortgage payments.
McCain also vowed, as he always does, to make the authors of earmark legislation famous by embarrassing them as a way to cut down on the practice. I wonder. Most earmarks are not ridiculous boondoggle programs. They fund things like schools and hospitals, which are not the kinds of things that their supporters feel embarrassed about. They also fund things like abstinence-education programs (in swing states like Pennsylvania), which many of McCain's voters favor.
Is Sarah Palin, who promised to be an advocate for special-needs families when she's in the White House, really going to slash earmarks for special-needs schools? Will McCain really "make the authors famous" when they're Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Republican allies who support an earmark for services aimed at families with autistic children? If they're so evil, why not do it in this election year, when Collins is a vulnerable incumbent? Earmarks get really tricky really fast."
My question is why is Obama so timid when the topic is brought up? If memory serves, he was in agreement with McCain that the earmark process needs to be reformed, as if that's an urgent priority going forward. He did point out that it's $16 billion vs. $700 billion for the bailout, but those are numbers that fly over the heads of us mere mortals.
(By the way, I'm on vacation in the Promised Land)
"
September 29, 2008 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has long criticized earmarking, but his focus has been transparency. For instance, he cosponsored the Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act. I don't see him defending earmarks, but I expect that he will step up the criticisms of earmark reform as a fix for the financial mess, especially of McCain repeats this crap in the next debate.
Enjoy your vacation, and for cryin' out loud, stop blogging. Also, please see if you can bring the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table. Your efforts are much appreciated.
September 29, 2008 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
* Ahem. Promised Land = Nova Scotia. Bucket 'O Scallops for $5. Tell me THAT ain't the Promised Land.
** Historic Note. The only internal conflict that ever troubled our fair land was between the Hard-Working God-Fearing Noble Protestant Majority vs. Them Fiddle-Loving Job-Fearing Papist Bastards That Won't Stop Breeding. Solution? Former Premier Dun Scotus MacDuff gave the Papists an island. Clearly, a more progressive solution - and one I believe offers hope for the Middle East today.
September 29, 2008 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
McCain's earmark obsession borders on insanity. I was so glad to watch John Kerry take Lindsay Graham to task on the subject on Sunday. Earmarks are McCain's red herring. As Obama pointed out at the debate, their influence on the overall budget is so small that they're essentially meaningless.
September 29, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Aw, c'mon, wabbit. He's a maverick full of mavericky maverickness.
Seriously, though, I'm glad Hilary made the point upthread that - gasp! - many earmarks are for legitimate purposes.
September 29, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is the essential point: most earmarks are valuable, and keep things moving for the country in a variety of ways.
Obama, as always, understands things like this are not a black and white issue. I wonder why many of his supporters don't get that key point.
September 29, 2008 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Genghis,
Don't know if you will see this or not, but (if I recall correctly) you were willing to go along with the bailout as proposed by the current Congressional bill -- which essentially puts an incredible amount of power into one person, with minimal oversight.
Why do you have an issue with earmarks which is somewhat a similar situation (on a much finer grained scale), but involves only a tiny fraction of the federal budget?
Or did I not interpret your bailout argument correctly?
September 29, 2008 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I argued that a bailout was necessary but not that the original bailout proposal should be enacted without amendment. I agreed with critics that more oversight was necessary.
September 29, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Although it's off topic (but this thread is going off the rec list soon, so I don't think it's too large a breech): given your statement above, are you happy that the House Bill (as currently written) went down?
September 29, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm very concerned. I don't object to further amendments, but I worry that nothing will get passed and that the financial situation will continue to deteriorate while Congress fiddles.
September 29, 2008 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me be more specific: would you have voted thumbs up or down on the bill?
September 29, 2008 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tentative thumbs up, but I have not gone through the details.
September 29, 2008 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point exactly: bill was rushed, no one had a chance to understand the impact.
By the way, on the floor it's either thumbs up or down. You can't equivocate!
September 29, 2008 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Give me a staff and pay me to vote, and I will happily dedicate all my resources to the matter and give you a firm vote. But I agree that it was rushed. As long as it happens before too long, I will be content.
September 29, 2008 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
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