Dems cast Rush as spokesman for GOP

[Partha]

It's the Reaganomics thing, Dd. Ever since conservatives misheard Reagan, they have lived by a credo that government is nothing but a problem. Any money they spend is wasted. There is no such thing as useful 'directed spending'/'earmarks'. It's ALL pork to them. It's why they spend so much time tearing down Federal school spending and Federal standards of schooling, even as they readily admit that countries with even MORE centralized school systems are eating their lunch in global business. They want damn little something for practically next to nothing.

[Lurker]

There's the issue. Embar is equating earmarks with pork. Lurker's saying it's not the same thing - pork is a small subset of the actual earmarks. If people were actually arguing about the same thing it would help.

If you mean it would help if the pork brigade was honest about the issue, I agree. Of course, if they admitted that they were hyperventilating about a tiny fraction of 1% of Federal spending they would have to admit they are being foolish.

Agree, Partha.

[Embar Angylwrath]

If earmarks aren't such a big deal, why Obama campaign on bringing them in check?

[Harlowe]

I think people are being willfully ignorant or obtuse.

Here we go - not all fat is bad. Just like a diet, there is fat that is good for you in moderation and fat that is never good for you. Earmarks are fat. Not all bad, not all good.

Which is a better analogy than what's been tossed around in this thread so far.

[Lurker]

Harlowe, bad analogy day was yesterday but I'll run with it. If earmarks are fat, the pork brigade is complaining because your diet includes 2% fat... and a small fraction of that might be bad fat. They want you to stop eating.

If earmarks aren't such a big deal, why Obama campaign on bringing them in check?

There's a huge difference between Obama's response to the issue and the absolute hysterics from the pork brigade (you included). Earmarks are not inherently bad. Bringing transparency to the process will help eliminate waste. It's nice to have a reasoned adult in charge again; someone that can recognize a problem and address it without they hyperbole, dishonesty, and hysterics.

[Embar Angylwrath]

To bad his response doesn't jive with his campaign promises.

Where was the line-by-line review he promised in the debate with McCain? Where was the reform he promised? Hell, he flew in from the campaing trail to vote on a measure to ELIMINATE ALL EARMARKS in 2009. Every message he sent during his campaign regarding earmarks, was that he was serious about reforming the process, and he knew it was stuffed with wasteful spending. But now that he has the oval office, it took him less than 100 days to rip up one of his campaign planks and toss it on the fire.

[Lurker]

Obama promised to go over the budget line by line and they are doing that. They have already isolated hundreds of billions that can be saved.

As for earmarks, he is serious about reforming the process. He played a large part in bringing transparency to the system. We now know who is putting in which earmarks. That helped eliminate a lot of waste and corruption. His suggestions for reform made yesterday would further eliminate waste.

Hell, he flew in from the campaing trail to vote on a measure to ELIMINATE ALL EARMARKS in 2009.

Are you talking about Obama asking earmarks to be removed from the Recovery Act? Removing a controversial issue (even when that controversy is largely manufactured) from an emergency measure so you could get it passed in a few weeks was a very smart move. You took that to mean that he wanted to eliminate all earmarks from everything, even though he specifically said during the campaign that he wasn't for that?

And this is why hysterical responses are bad. You lose perspective and start conflating issues.

[Partha]

He did not promise to eliminate all earmarks in 2009. Quit lying.

But let's go back to the original point. John, nobody is denying that $18 billion is important. And, absolutely, we need earmark reform. And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.

But the fact is that eliminating earmarks alone is not a recipe for how we're going to get the middle class back on track.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Who said he promised to do it? I said he voted on a measure that would ban all earmarks in 2009. Please work on your reading comprehension, Rsak.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch ... ark-1.html

March 11, 2009 2:01 PM

Then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., one year ago this week, swooped in from the campaign trail to -- along with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- vote for an amendment to impose a one-year moratorium on earmarks for fiscal year 2009.

All three then-presidential candidates voted for the amendment,offered by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC.

http://therecord.barackobama.com/?p=1851

Obama Joined The Senate’s Efforts To Ban Earmarks For A Year. Obama supported and voted for a Senate amendment that would ban earmarks for a year and he hasn’t asked for any earmarks this year.

@ Lurker - Are you serioulsy making the statement that Obama went line by line through the spending bill and identified all the inappropriate earmarks, and then worked to eliminate them? Becasue as Iunderstand it, he just signed that massive pile of steaming nasty that Congress dropeed on his desk without kicking it back for ANY earmark culling. And that is in DIRECT contradiction to what he said he would do regarding earmarks.

In a statement from his Senate office, Obama said that even with the reforms made in the past year, “I have come to believe that the system is broken.
“We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress’ seniority, rather than the merit of the project. We can no longer accept an earmarks process that has become so complicated to navigate that a municipality or nonprofit group has to hire high-priced D.C. lobbyists to do it. And we can no longer accept an earmarks process in which many of the projects being funded fail to address the real needs of our country.”

[Lurker]

@ Lurker - Are you serioulsy making the statement that Obama went line by line through the spending bill and identified all the inappropriate earmarks, and then worked to eliminate them? Becasue as Iunderstand it, he just signed that massive pile of steaming nasty that Congress dropeed on his desk without kicking it back for ANY earmark culling. And that is in DIRECT contradiction to what he said he would do regarding earmarks.

Just so we're clear, the spending bill contained earmarks accounting for 2% of the total. I think it's unhinged to refer to it as a "massive pile of steaming nasty". It makes you look foolish and irrational.

No, Obama didn't go through last years spending bill line by line and he didn't push it back for revisions. It was last years business. Earmarks accounted for 2% of the total and maybe a fraction of that 2% was wasteful. I don't know. You don't know.

I have no doubts that he'll do what he promised moving forward when he's actually involved in the process. That doesn't mean that all earmarks will be eliminated, and I'm sure the same crowd of nutballs will be back next year saying "OMG there are 8000 earmarks in this bill and some have funny names!". Morons the whole lot of them.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I love how you paint it as only two percent. It's over 8 BILLION dollars of earmarks. Lets not lose sight of that, shall we?

And the excuse that it's last year's business is a cop out. This is Obama's watch, and he's undoing a lot of other stuff that was just last year's business too. He signed the damn thing, so this makes it HIS business, and he vowed to to do HIS business differently.

[Lurker]

I love how you paint it as only two percent. It's over 8 BILLION dollars of earmarks. Lets not lose sight of that, shall we?

I agree. Let's not lose sight of the facts. It's still important to note that you have no idea how much of that, if any, was wasteful spending. And it's hysterical (in every sense of the word) to call the bill a steaming pile of wasteful pork based on 2%.

[Harlowe]

I love how you paint it as only two percent. It's over 8 BILLION dollars of earmarks. Lets not lose sight of that, shall we?

I agree. Let's not lose sight of the facts. It's still important to note that you have no idea how much of that, if any, was wasteful spending. And it's hysterical (in every sense of the word) to call the bill a steaming pile of wasteful pork based on 2%.

It would have been nice to this kind of hysteria from people over the crappy job a president was doing during Bush's first term. Maybe we wouldn't be dealing with a budget clusterfuck.

I can't believe the degree of twisting going on just to call out Obama on shit from his campaign during his first 100 days in office.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Twisting?

No onme has refuted any facts I've posted. They've just engaged in dances to make excuses for Obama.

That was last year's business. It was only 2%. He said he'd do better next time. All of you are rationalizing his departure from his campaign promises. I know some of you are beginning to like the taste of Obama cock, and you're desperate to make excuses for him, but the fact is, he didn't do what he promised he would do. And he had a chance to do it. Period.

[Lurker]

Ha! Nobody has refuted your facts? Too funny.

I've been trying to put your "facts" in perspective so you can stop being sickened and hysterical. Just like your death row population example, we could eliminate all earmarks and it would result in zero savings.

Obama promised to reform the system and he will. Not that it'll stop the hand waving and hysteria.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Ha! Nobody has refuted your facts? Too funny.

I've been trying to put your "facts" in perspective so you can stop being sickened and hysterical. Just like your death row population example, we could eliminate all earmarks and it would result in zero savings.

Obama promised to reform the system and he will. Not that it'll stop the hand waving and hysteria.

Trying to put my facts in perspective isn't a refutation of the facts, its an attempt to spin them. You're continuing to make excuses for Obama's failure to live up to what he said he'd do. But hey, if you're ok with broken promises...

[Lurker]

Trying to put my facts in perspective isn't a refutation of the facts, its an attempt to spin them.

Hardly. Perspective is everything. But whatever. Keep focusing on the earmark issue which accounts for a fraction of a fraction of total spending. Keep avoiding looking at the issue in a reasonable manner. Keep conflating earmarks and waste. Keep making dumb analogies. Knock yourself out. The adults will address the real problems and handle them in a reasonable way.

I'll say it again... Obama promised to reform the system and he will. Not that it'll stop the hand waving and hysteria.

[Harlowe]

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based watchdog group, Alaska will receive more money, per capita, from the bill's earmarks than any other state. (Alaska will pocket $209.71 for each state resident.) One hundred earmarks in the bill, worth a total of $143.9 million, are tagged for Palin's state.

Coming from someone who was leading the "OMG EARMARX R DESTROYUN AMERICUN LIFE" brigade.

[Lurker]

OMG! And that includes over 380,000 dollars to "implement a child abuse delivery program"! Why are we spending tax dollars do deliver abuse to children?!?




And, yeah... the criticism of the earmarks in the spending bill were just that moronic.

[Select]

You're continuing to make excuses for Obama's failure to live up to what he said he'd do. But hey, if you're ok with broken promises...

He's barely had time. He's done a fantastic job with keeping his promises in the time he has had. Things I wanted overturned were. Things I wanted brought back were. He said he would do all of it and he has so far. You're condemning a champion racehorse before he's even reached the halfway mark. It's barely begun.