So now Obama has said that he is going to ban all earmarks from the recovery package he is putting together. He was pressed about it and said it repeatedly:
Question: … Earmarks, you said there will be none that get in there without review. Some people would argue even the so-called bridge to nowhere got review, some level of review …
Obama: No, no, no. What I’m saying is – let me repeat what I said about that … We will ban all earmarks in the recovery package. And I describe earmarks as the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review. So what I’m saying is, we’re not having earmarks in the recovery package, period. I was describing what earmarks are.
Question: So there’s – you’re not suggesting there’s some level of review that might …
Obama: I’m saying there are no earmarks in the recovery package. That, that is the position that I’m taking.
You could split hairs like Ed Morrissey does about whether without review means there will be any earmarks or not. That isn’t the point. All congress will do is take what they were going to put in as earmarks and make it part of the official legislation. With no republicans to hold them back why not?
Besides that, the whole thing is practically an earmark. For the unions anyway. 300+ billion payback for the 300+ million they contributed to campaigns.
If this package weren’t going to hurt so much, it would almost be funny.
