Earmark talk is overblown

[Mesteryo]

This election could wind up being about a lot of things. The economy. The war in Iraq. Whether Sarah Palin's mooseburgers are better than Barack Obama's chili. But there's at least one thing that it won't be about:

Earmarks.

Our apologies to John McCain. If the Arizona senator had his druthers, earmarks are all America would talk about from now until Nov. 4--perhaps with the word "surge" mentioned every other week, just for variety. McCain has spent much of his Congressional career crusading against pork-barrel spending--i.e., the secretive appropriations that House and Senate members have increasingly slipped into spending bills without public hearings or debate. He prides himself on never having requested an earmark for the Grand Canyon State, which is pretty much true.


On the stump, he decries the practice as "disgraceful" and promises as president to veto with Ronald Reagan's pen every pork-barrel bill that crosses his desk. He even bases his plan to balance the budget in part on slashing $100 billion in earmarks from the federal budget. Experts say that McCain's pledge is a "fantasy"--even if the budget contained $100 billion in earmarks (which it doesn't) that sum wouldn't be enough to put the U.S. in the black. Still, McCain has been effective in using his opposition to earmarks as a symbol of his larger mission to reform a wayward Washington.


So what's the problem? Two words: Sarah Palin. When McCain introduced Palin late last month in Dayton, Ohio, he touted her as a fellow crusader against wasteful spending. Palin called herself a reformer who worked to end the "abuses of earmark spending in Congress." Unfortunately, Palin requested more than $450 million in federal earmarks during her two years as governor of Alaska--more per person than any other state. (Not to mention being for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.) And Palin wasn't new to the practice. Previously, as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Palin employed Washington lobbyist Steven Silver to bring home $27 million in bacon--about $3,375 per person. The town had never received earmarks before Palin's tenure.



http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/09/11/why-all-this-talk-of-earmarks-is-nonsense.aspx

[On the Road]

1. Palin's Earmarks Were Not Particularly Egregious

Earmarks are not corrupt in and of themselves. I even have a less negative view of the bridge to nowhere after reading more about it.

The problem is they both RUNNING HARD on a platform of doing the opposite.

[stillcool]

2. earmarks are not corrupt..

but politicians are. Sarah Palin is a serial liar. I believe that is what the problem is..not earmarks.