Obama Surrenders on Earmarks

President Obama said on Wednesday that he will sign a spending bill packed with special projects in order to keep the government running.

Bogus argument by the President and typical of his behavior. On style he is opposed, in substance he supports. Of course his retreat in the face of Congress of earmarks is now complete as the President is now saying earmarks must have a worthy cause. By the way Congress could continue funding the government at any time even with a veto, the argument that the president had has hands tied and was forced to sign this bill to keep government running is just absurd.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama on Wednesday called for a reform of the much-maligned federal earmarking process. Earmarks are unrelated pet projects that members of Congress insert in spending bills. The president said it was time for Congress and the White House to embrace a new set of guiding principles. His remarks came the day after the Senate passed a $410 billion spending bill that included nearly 9,000 earmarks, which are projects designed to benefit individual legislators' districts.

The earmarks in the spending bill are worth nearly $8 billion. Many critics have deemed them as wasteful, and some observers have questioned Obama's pledge to end such spending.

Some lawmakers urged Obama to veto the bill — saying it goes against the president's campaign pledge. Obama said that while he would sign the bill, which funds the government for the remainder of the current fiscal year, future earmarks should "have a legitimate and worthy public purpose."

Of course this is just one of many broken promises and a silly one at that. Congress controls spending. Of course he could veto the measure but this is the path of least resistance presidency and he will not stand up to the party bosses in Congress. By the way McCain just nails the President on this:

“Last November, the American people, as I am keenly aware, voted for change,” Mr. McCain declared on the Senate floor. “Somehow we’re saying this is last year’s business; only this is funding this year’s operations. So we’ll vote to pass this, and the message is, my friends and colleagues, that it’s business as usual here in Washington.”

Mr. McCain added: “If the president were serious about his pledge for change, he would veto this bill. He won’t.”