Clinton: Five times as many pork projects as opponents (OneNewsNow.com)

Clinton: Five times more earmarks than her opponents

Jeff Johnson - 1/25/2008 9:00:00 AM

Many presidential candidates have been talking about "change" in their campaign speeches, but one conservative watchdog group says it appears that those candidates actually want to keep as much of your "change" as possible and not tell you how they're spending it.

Government earmarks They are called "earmarks" -- vague, written instructions attached to federal agency budgets and used as a "backdoor" to fund pet projects. Although earmarks are not passed into law by Congress, agency employees know they must abide by the earmarks or face potential retribution in the form of budget cuts the following year.

Democrats promised to reduce the number of earmarks when they gained control of Congress, however, that did not happen. The only apparent change is that each earmark must now include the name of the congressional sponsor requesting money for their pet projects.

So how did the presidential candidates fare on earmarks? Tom Schatz is president of Citizens Against Government Waste, and he says that one presidential candidate in particular stands out from the rest. "You compare the 261 [earmarks] that Senator Clinton received to the zero that Senator McCain received, which is the same number he gets every year," notes Schatz. "And even Congressman Kucinich, viewed as a very liberal member of congress, only got six earmarks."

Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) got 46 earmarks, less than one-fifth the number Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) received, and Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) got 10 earmarks in the budget. Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have all made statements indicating they would take action as president to end earmarks.

"Rudy Giuliani has said that he would end earmarking and start budgeting like a business," says Schatz. "Governor Romney has talked about the need to reduce the number of earmarks, control them, [and] establish the line-item veto. Governor Huckabee has talked about the line item veto, although he, overall, only has three lines about wasteful spending or earmarks on his website."

Schatz says none of the Democrats have addressed the issue in their presidential campaigns, though Obama did co-sponsor legislation to make it easier to find out who sponsored an earmark.