McClintock, Obama on same page with earmarks
By Rob Hotakainen, Sacramento Bee
WASHINGTON – Since joining Congress two years ago, Republican Rep. Tom McClintock has taken heat from Placer County officials for resisting earmarks, money that’s used to pay for pet projects back home.
“There are a number of local officials who became addicted to earmarks,” said McClintock, of Elk Grove, who represents California’s 4th Congressional District.
“But if local officials of the community aren’t willing to use local dollars for a local project, why should the taxpayers of some other community cough up the money?”
As he prepares to join the House majority when the new Congress convenes in January, McClintock now has an unlikely ally: President Barack Obama.
If a project is of national impact then it should be proposed as a standalone entity to be voted on by all members of congress. No slipping in something to buy the vote of a representative who would not otherwise vote for the issue on the table.
Actually, this article by the hapless SacBee gets it wrong, again… as usual. The author (and by extension, Ms. Reed) implies that Obama has been a leader in earmark reform and that some wizened Republicans have finally gotten on board. It’s actually the other way around. The link below lists the earmark requests by Senator Obama for 07-08 and they amount to 221 requests for hundreds of millions of dollars. Now we are to believe that he has taken a 180 degree turn and condemns the very practice in which he so heavily engaged?
Gimmee a break! So, it seems Obama has finally philosophically joined the likes of Republicans like our Congressman Tom McClintock, who, by the way, has requested ZERO earmarks.
See all Obummer’s earmarks here…
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/03/sweet_scoop_obama_after_initia.html