Obama calls for earmark reform, GOP calls for ban

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JULIE PACE

WASHINGTON (AP) - Confronting the nation's mounting deficit, President Barack Obama is urging Congress to limit spending on pet home-state projects, while Republicans are challenging him to support an outright ban.

In his weekly radio and online address Saturday, Obama said that with the economy still struggling to recover from the recession, the U.S. cannot afford unnecessary spending on so-called earmarks, items lawmakers slip into spending bills without a full examination or debate.

"When it comes to signaling our commitment to fiscal responsibility, addressing them would have an important impact," Obama said from Asia, where he was wrapping up a 10-day trip.

However, Obama stopped short of calling for a full ban on earmarks, saying some of them "support worthy projects in our local communities." While he said steps must be taken to limit wasteful spending, he offered no specific proposals for how to do so.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20101113/D9JF87K80.html

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President Barack Obama speaks during a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan after their meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Yokohama, Japan, Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Yuriko Nakao, Pool)

[ingac70]

1. Ban 'em!

Red states and rural areas are the one that benefit from earmarks, and these tea bagging bastards need to start walking the talk.

[Mz Pip]

10. Red State Welfare

Obama should call them on their bluff and agree. There won't be any more photo ops for Red State congresscritters holding up copies of large checks after voting against bringing that money to their districts.

The tea partiers might be a bit surprised to learn how much their anti-government Red States depend on the money.

[Better Believe It]

2. Yippee! Let's hear it for deficit cutting and " fiscal responsibility"!

[somone]

5. Gotta prove fiscal responsibility by killing poor Americans, just like

Gotta prove patriotism by killing more of them Afghans

[Gman]

3. Republicans always create an issue that they say must be stopped

then scream about it knowing full well it can never be stopped because they do it and need it themselves. They never get called on it.

[stray cat]

4. Comprmise point - ban them

[underpants]

6. 1/2 of 1% of the budget and spending BUT they are great ways to get re-elected

this is all a show for nothing really. The GOP nor the Dems are really going to do anything about earmarks.

[gibby2433]

16. You nailed it, underpants

This is yet another "talking point," that would really do nothing for the deficit but would provide hardships for many states. This GOP dogma that everything simply is "good" vs. "bad," or "right" vs. "wrong," is B.S. SOME earmarks do good, some are wasteful. Why not try and have oversight and eliminate the waste? Noooo, that's too nuanced. And would be too much WORK.

Bonus - I got to write, "you nailed it, UNDERPANTS." Nice.

[underpants]

17. Binary.

HAS to be one or the other. No time for grey area or "nuance" which is like you know FRENCH
:hi:

[ixion]

7. I'd rather see the reduction come from the Military/Security complex

because that is the real beast in the room .

[somone]

The beast has guns and thugs and assassins

whereas many old geezers don't have a pot to piss in

[Bigmack]

8. Earmarks and pork ain't shit!..

It's the fucking wars and tax cuts and other shit that Dumbya passed. All this "pork" bullshit is just theater for the suckers.
- - - -
"These earmarks and "pork" projects are bankrupting America."  You hear that a lot.  Not true, though.  

This year Congress spent $16.5 billion on 9,129 projects around the country, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. Which is also less than one-half of 1 percent of all federal spending.
In fact, if you could retroactively undo every single pork-barrel project Congress has passed during the past 20 years — all 110,000 of them — you would have enough money to buy down the $13.7 trillion national debt by ... 2 percent.   
http://www.cagw.org/

The two wars, the Bush tax cuts and the Medicare prescription-drug program the Republicans pushed through in 2003.  The Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, and pushed the Medicare drug bill through by ending a filibuster by the Democrats. Just the drug program, which was never accounted for in the budget until 2009, is adding more to the deficit than the bank bailout, the stimulus and the new health-care law combined.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Prescription_Drug,_Improvement,_and_Modernization_Act

[pasto76]

15. exactly.

[ProSense]

9. Obama urges earmark elimination in weekly address

Obama urges earmark elimination in weekly address

I agree with those Republican and Democratic members of Congress who’ve recently said that in these challenging days, we can’t afford what are called earmarks. These are items inserted into spending bills by members of Congress without adequate review.

Now, some of these earmarks support worthy projects in our local communities. But many others do not. We can’t afford Bridges to Nowhere like the one that was planned a few years back in Alaska. Earmarks like these represent a relatively small part of overall federal spending. But when it comes to signaling our commitment to fiscal responsibility, addressing them would have an important impact.

<...>

[stubtoe]

11. Ol' Mitch ain't gonna like this much.

[indypaul]

12. Why step into the middle of the GOP's circular firing squad? n/t

[bc3000]

13. Ban them - call the Republicans' bluff

[struggle4progress]

14. It's up to Congress: the legislation is written by Congress, under rules Congress sets

The President's opinion is more or less irrelevant

[Unvanguard]

18. Obama's position is correct, but both positions are largely irrelevant to the deficit.

:shrug: