Obama releases earmark requests
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama made public his requests for so-called earmarks Thursday, hours after Sen. John McCain challenged him and Sen. Hillary Clinton on the spending measures.
The Senate is expected to vote Thursday on a measure to ban congressional earmarks for one year.
Earmarks are pet projects added onto often unrelated government spending bills.
McCain earlier urged his Democratic rivals to reveal the earmarks they’ve asked for and turn back the money that hasn’t been spent yet.
The Obama camp then joined McCain in calling for Clinton to release her requests.
The Clinton campaign was asked about earmarks on a press call Thursday afternoon before Obama released his requests.
The campaign deferred questioning to Clinton’s Senate office. CNN is awaiting a response.
McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and the Democratic candidates are all interrupting their campaign schedules to make Thursday’s vote.
The three White House hopefuls support the moratorium, even though key senators on both sides oppose it and aides predict it will fail. Watch the battle over the earmark ban
McCain, who has refused to request spending for projects in his home state of Arizona, has long been a vocal critic of earmarks.
Clinton and Obama announced this week they favor the ban, despite their own use of earmarks.
McCain said the Democratic presidential candidates are late to the anti-earmarks position, saying both have requested earmarks using taxpayer dollars that are absolutely outrageously wasted. Watch what McCain says about their earmarks
I think they should ask that those earmarks that they asked for and obtained — the money that hasn’t been spent yet — ask them to turn that money back to the Treasury, McCain said.
Obama’s press office questioned why Clinton has not released her earmarks, saying If Sen. Clinton will not agree to join Sen. Obama in releasing her earmark requests, voters should ask why she doesn’t believe they have the right to know [how] she wants to spend their tax dollars.
Clinton grabbed $342 million worth of earmarks last year, ranking her 10th highest on the list of senators, according to the budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
The senator is proud of the investments in New York she has secured, according to her spokesman Philippe Reines. But she believes the one-year ban will allow a hard look at how more sunlight and transparency can be brought to this process, Reines added.
Obama in fiscal year 2008 secured $98 million in funding for Illinois projects, according to the Taxpayers for Common Sense.
According to information released Thursday by the Obama camp, the Illinois senator had 138 earmark requests for the 2007 fiscal year.
His total requested funding was about $330 million. His average request was about $2.4 million, with the largest request being $62 million intended to modify a Boeing 747 aircraft to capture infrared images of the earth.
Clinton’s total earmark requests from fiscal year 2007 have not yet been released.
In a statement this week, Obama complained that earmarks are doled out based on a lawmaker’s seniority, not the merit of a project, and that many of the projects fail to address the real needs of our country.
Earmark opponents pushed for the ban after watching Congress approve an increasing number of special projects in recent years.
Last year, Congress approved 12,884 earmarks. While the budget watchdog group said that figure is down from an all-time high in 2005, it still represents more than $18 billion in spending.
Opponents of earmarks argue that special projects not only waste money but also can lead to corruption, pointing to former Rep. Randy Duke Cunningham, R-California. Now imprisoned, Cunningham received bribes in return for earmarks related to defense contracts.
Defenders of earmarks, such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, say earmarks — or congressionally directed spending as they prefer to call them — are an important congressional prerogative that ensure home-state needs aren’t overlooked by Washington bureaucrats. Reid also has blamed Republicans for the explosion of earmarks when they controlled Congress.
He said Democrats went a long way in correcting the system with a bill last year that required lawmakers to put their name on the earmarks they request and to promise they have no financial stake in the projects.
The earmark ban, offered by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, will be voted on as an amendment to the 2009 budget resolution.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, is weighing a similar proposal and is expected to announce this week whether the House of Representatives also will institute a one-year ban.
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