Obama smells like PORK!

[tomdarch]

Sure Palin is running around repeating the lie that she "opposed" or "killed" the Bridge to Nowhere, when she actually campaigned for governor on her support for the project.

But what about Obama? Rumors on the internet say that he went after "a billion dollars of pork"! Let's see what my junior senator has been up to when he "brings home the bacon":

http://www.electiongeek.com/blog/2008/0 ... -earmarks/

Hmm, in FY 2007 he requested money for...

Scientific Research on:
Rapid healing systems for wounded military
Sustainable agriculture
Agriculture in arid lands (there's some short-sighted, parochial Illinois pork!)
A system to detect outbreaks of diseases like SARS and Avian flu

Social spending on:
Shelters for abused women
Alternative activities for "at-risk" kids so they don't end up in prisons
Prison-to-work support
Pre-employment training to keep people off welfare
An assistive-technologies lending program for rural, southern Illinois
Anti-obesity programs in poor areas
Assistance for low-income (read "homeless") veterans

Funding for local police departments

Military Spending:
Keeping a major arsenal up and running
Improving military maintenance efficiency
Upgrading Humvees to a hybrid system

Environmental projects:
"Green building" improvements
Invasive species control

Infrastructure improvements:
Expanding municipal water and sewer systems
Stormwater/flooding control
Replacing Chicago's major river locks, which are 15 years beyond their design-life.

Healthcare:
Hospital upgrades for ICU, cancer and stroke treatment centers
(actually, there's a ton of hospital and medical requests)
VA Clinic funding
Emergency medical equipment for rural parts of the state
Research to reduce hospital-acquired infections

Education spending:
Training for new teachers in the Chicago Public schools

Yeah, there's some bullshit in there like "faith-based anti-drug" crap, there's some ethanol research, some "homeland security education" BS

The closest thing I can see to the "bridge to nowhere" is some obviously worthless charter school program called Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) - at least it's only $200,000 down the tubes.

Seriously, I expected at least a few more "WTF" classic pork projects in there. The right-wing noise machine has been trying to portray Obama as "just another Chicago machine politician" - and this list of earmarks fails miserably on that account. This list was posed in March, so the noise-machine has had plenty of time to find the dirt here - and I haven't heard a damn thing about specific "pork projects." Also, I don't know where the "Obama 1 billion in pork" number is coming from, because most of these projects are in the range of $200k to $2m - and I don't see 500 projects at $2m.

Actually, as a self interested Chicagoan, I say "kick the bum up" - make him President, because he isn't bringing home the bacon to Chicago as a senator! If Palin could get $27 million in earmarks for 6,000 person Wasilla, AK, Obama should have brought Chicago $12 billion! Slacker!

[L K Day]

Let me be very supportive here.

Click on the link Tomdarch provides and scroll through the whole thing. Yes, I mean the whole thing, all the way to the end. Come on now, you can do it, keep scrolling. No the list isn't endless, you'll get there. Made it? Good. Now, remind yourself that these are just "earmarks", that is they are attachments to the main spending bills, just odds and ends that are tacked on. Then imagine every senator requesting similar earmarks as payback for their votes on specific spending bills. Amazing, isn't it?

[mcrib]

That is your defense. I bet if we take a look at the distinguished senators from Alaska we'd see some shocking earmarks. here is an example of one "Sen. Ted Stevens, who as a top appropriator has mastered the art of the congressional earmark, tucked $3.5 million into a Senate spending bill this year to help finance an airport to serve a remote Alaskan island.

The airstrip would connect the roughly 100 permanent residents of Akutan to the outside world. The biggest beneficiary, though, would be Seattle-based Trident Seafoods Corp., which operates one of the world’s largest seafood processing plants on the volcanic island in the Aleutians." (Kathryn Wolfe NYT) Funny his sun was in the process of buying the same seafood company at the time. And that is one from the man who "has mastered t art of the congressional earmark". Amazing isn't it?

[L K Day]

Are you saying that, compared to Stevens, Obama is a light weight? Well, yeah.

[charlie]

Hate the game, not the playa.

[tomdarch]

Yeah, I scrolled all the way to the end - that's FY '06 following FY '07. But the first time I did it I didn't see this:

Hey oooooo!

My point in posting this is that McCain is tromping around "accusing Obama of asking for $932 million in pork barrel projects in his first Senate term." WTF - he picked a pork gorger for VP. McCain's whole shtick on "pork" is, surprise!, kinda bogus:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-che ... rmark.html

The article leads off with a direct quote from McCain:

I can eliminate $100 billion of wasteful and earmark spending immediately--35 billion in big spending bills in the last two years, and another 65 billion that has already been made a permanent part of the budget.

The article then goes on to point out that people who factually analyze the federal budget come up with something like $18.3 billion in the '08 budget. That's quite a gap to McCain's "$100 billion" and the campaign can't exactly explain that number. Also, the campaign can't quite identify where these promised "$100 billion" in annual cuts would come from. But Johnny sure made it sound like he had a clear idea of what he was going to do, didn't he?

I took a 10% sample from the middle of the Obama posting and came up with 19.2m, so multiplying by 10 gets us to $192 million for both years - way short of McCain's "932 million" claim. As we see from the fact check article, McCain uses very "funny" numbers, and his claim isn't supported by these facts. Maybe somewhere out there is another $700 million in '06 and '07 - I am genuinely interested in seeing it.

Again - Obama seems to be "underperforming" in the pork race! That, or he uses good judgment and restraint in working to only fund better projects. I can also tell you that a fair amount of that money is going into areas that don't vote for Democrats, let alone a "black" person. He's got a fair amount of money going into DuPage County - an area that rivals parts of Utah as "the most Republican place in America."

Sure, I'm biased, but looking at that list gives me the impression that Obama is using pretty good judgment on where and how to use our tax dollars. I was surprised enough to want to post this.

So: McCain = phoney baloney numbers, Palin = bridge to nowhere supporter and Obama = not much pork, and for good things like clean water, better hospitals and schools and shelters for abused women.

I'm no fan of the earmark system for allocating federal funding at a local level, and it's to the credit of both Barack Obama and John McCain that they are critical of the system and want to improve it. The alternatives are messy, complicated and just as ripe for abuse, but let's hope that whom ever is elected that (at least for a while) the system is improved.

[Crankmas]

if you want change- its third party , if not, lie to yourself your probably more comfortable with that anyway

[DriskellHR]

I think I have posted this before but it is no longer a question of who the best canadate would be but who you hate the least.

No one ever throws their vote away but this time around It seems so critical that we move towords change rather than the same ole' B.S. that is slung around by current elected officials. Just the reason I'M not going third party this time. I love the guy but really does Ron Paul have a chance? (or any of the others)

[Crankmas]

not a chance in hell, a country of sheep, two breeds, dems and repubs- relax you're soaking in it- obama and mccain have more in common than not- a vote for one is a vote for the other - Reign in Blood- unleash the flood.

[L Day]

So you've decided to throw your vote away? You might be right about the need for a third party, but one is not likely to succeed when it's built from the top down. If a viable third party ever succeeds in America it will be because it starts at the grass roots level and is built from the bottom up. Just a thought.