CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
– APPROPRIATIONS
Updated Feb. 26, 2009 – 4:52 p.m.
President’s Inner Circle Has Earmarks in Omnibus
By Jonathan Allen, CQ Staff
Funny how items show up in spending bills without any notice — like an earmark for a president who promised not to seek any.
President Obama, who took a no-earmark pledge on the campaign trail, is listed as one of dozens of cosponsors of a $7.7 million set-aside in the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill passed by the House on Wednesday.
But not for long.
On Thursday, Rob Blumenthal, a spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee said the one earmark in the bill that carries Obama’s name will be edited. The committee will attribute that earmark to other senators on the list of that provision’s supporters, but not Obama.
No changes are expected to the earmarks requested by other lawmakers who ended up in top jobs in the Obama administration months after they sought set-asides for special projects in the bills that became the omnibus (
The catchall bill is an accumulation of leftovers from 2008 — spending measures that weren’t enacted before the 110th Congress expired. It’s moving through Congress now because a temporary extension of funds to run the government will run out after March 6.
Obama’s name jumped out on a list of many earmark cosponsors because he and his staff have been so emphatic about his no-earmark stance.
“I think you can take one sign of the president’s seriousness on this that there aren’t any from him that I know of in that omnibus largely because there weren’t any that were requested last year,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday.
The $7.7 million earmark — for Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational Institutions — is cosponsored by a long list of other members of both chambers. The program appeared in Senate report language last year but its sponsors were not identified at that time.
Overall, the president, vice president, the White House chief of staff and the four Cabinet secretaries who were in Congress last year showed up in the records of the House and Senate Appropriations committees as the sponsors or cosponsors of hundreds of millions of dollars in pet projects in the $410 billion spending bill.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. , who was a senator from Delaware when the window for making 2009 pet project requests was open, has his name attached to $94.9 million in earmarks.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar , who was a senator at the time, sponsored or cosponsored even more in special line items for favored projects. His total, including earmarks he supported as a secondary sponsor, was $227.4 million. The overwhelming majority of those earmarks were cosponsored in conjunction with other lawmakers.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton , Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood , Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel also were members of the last Congress, and each of their names is associated with at least one earmark in this appropriation, which is ready for debate in the Senate.
Transparency
A Republican aide was happy to point out dozens of earmarks for top administration officials. CQ found more, including the name Obama on page 397 of a 427-page explanatory statement appended to the section of dealing with education money.
The next version of that congressional report will omit Obama’s name.
Lists of earmark sponsors are relatively new, ordered for the first time when Democrats took control of Congress in 2007.
Transparency, particularly on earmarks, also has been a watchword for Obama during his campaign and the early days of his presidency.
He has pledged to revamp the earmarking system and said last year that he would abstain from making requests.
“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,” he said last April in making his announcement.
When asked for comment, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Thursday, “We will send you information as soon as it’s available.”
Gibbs on Wednesday did not directly answer a question about whether Obama would encourage his Cabinet secretaries to withdraw their earmark requests, but praised the relatively new disclosure rules.
“The president has discussed and worked with Congress to pass some reform of this process that now ensure that people like you that are interested can go into a piece of legislation and see the names of those sponsors,” Gibbs said. “I’m sure that helped greatly in the formulation of said question.”
Earmarker And Administrator
LaHood will be the ultimate administrator of four of his own earmarks within the money being given to the Transportation Department, including $380,000 to replace vehicles for the disabled in his hometown of Peoria.
But that’s a small slice of the $31.2 million in earmarks he is credited with requesting or co-requesting in the bills wrapped into the omnibus.
Like Obama’s lone project, Clinton’s earmarks — totaling a little bit less than $109 million — were all sought as part of a group of a dozen or more colleagues.
In many cases, members of Obama’s Cabinet were cosponsors of the same earmark. For example, Clinton and Biden were cosponsors of the money for Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational Institutions.
Solis, who was confirmed this week, sponsored or cosponsored $38.4 million worth of earmarks, though she was the lone sponsor for only $814,000 of that.
Like Clinton, she was one of dozens of cosponsors of a $24 million writing project under the Department of Education.
Emanuel had $3.9 million in earmarks for which he was the sole sponsor and a little bit more than $4.7 million overall.
All of Biden’s requests were cosponsored with at least fellow Democratic home-state Sen. Thomas R. Carper . Many of them included Delaware’s lone House member, Republican Michael N. Castle . Some were made as part of larger coalitions.
Salazar, who joined with his brother, Democratic Rep. John T. Salazar of Colorado, on many requests, was the lone sponsor of just more than $5.4 million in earmarks, according to CQ’s review of the sponsors listed in the legislative documents and a separate compilation provided by a GOP aide.
First posted Feb. 26, 2009 9:48 a.m.
Comments
sounds like used car salesmen
Obama will far surpass any politician in the breadth and depth of his lies and deceipt. How embarrassing. He's a disgrace to mankind.
http://www.leftinthewest.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2710#11925 Montana earmarks.
Actually, the "earmark" Obama's name is attached to is for secondary education on Native American Reservations--of which, Illinois has none. So this doesn't actually mesh with the traditional concept of "earmark," which implies that the state of Illinois would receive a benefit from the measure. Personally, that made a huge difference to me.
This bill cited as an Obama earmark is not an "earmark" as traditionally understood. It doesn't benefit a specific state or congressional district (or company). Instead, its directed toward Indian tribes and education in the over 300 Indian tribal areas in the USA, which exist in a huge number of states. Moreover, one of the states WITHOUT any Indian tribal area is ILLINOIS. here's a map which shows federal indian tribal areas from the National Parks Service, to show that there are no tribal areas in Illinois. http://www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/DOCUMENTS/ResMAP.HTM in sum, this is no more of an "earmark" than money set aside for the development of charter schools, or money appropriated for a submarine, or money set aside to provide armoured vehicles for the troops.
Does this article mean to imply that there are 0 earmarks from the Republicans? Can the author please let us know?
You are so right Paul. But I think those who personally want the Obama administration to fail will still throw a tantrum even if he had no earmarks. As long as there's a democrat in the house, there will be blood!
An earmark is money set aside for a special interest group or cause. These can include localities as well as groups, such as the disabled , river otter conservationists, or Native Americans. What makes an earmark an earmark is that it is money set aside for a specific purpose that was not granted funding as part of the federal agency fund allocation requests. And to paul's comment: you are right, except the point of this article was to show that Obama's people, the people supposedly against earmarks, have requested plenty of them in this spending bill. It doesn't seek to challenge the merits of the programs the earmarks would eventually fund, just the seemingly hypocritical stance of the Obama staff.
if this is a news piece then the lead is remarkably inappropriate. it seems like the intro to a partisan press release.
Is that he best you could do? 7.7 mil for an indian school? You are pathetic.
Another example of screwing the language! Many so-called earmarks are perfectly legitimate. 7.7 million for pos-seconday education in over 300 Indian reservations is a pittance for a group of people whose unemployment rate is double the nation's - That's no earmark - it's an effort to get an underserved group employable!
In response to a question below, yes, Republicans have 40% of the earmarks.
just because you take the name off of an earmark that makes it "OK". how stupid do they think we are? the sponsors should have to withdraw the earmark. same old sh*t- do as I say, not as I do
falconium--I guess you must be related to bill gates since 7.7 milion sounds like a pittance to you. 1 cent is too much when you (obama)makes a big deal of not having any earmarks. where I come from that is called "lying:
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