McCain Twitters the "Pork" (and Just WHAT is an Earmark?)

On the heels of his massive near $800 billion stimulus package, President Obama has just signed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. Wire services and Twitter updates alike are all abuzz about the more than 9000 earmarks included in this bill. Earmarks, pork barrel politics, siphoning the fat, and spending reform....like everyone else, I was confused. So, like any good journalista, I looked things up. Here: a few notes about this whole earmark business.

First of all, what is an omnibus spending bill?
It's basically a big catch-all funding package. It will give money to various government agencies to provide "significant increases in food aid for the poor, energy research and other programs." It's also the source of funding for most Cabinet departments. But a bill like this can also get loaded up with what the government calls "earmarks."

So, what's an earmark?
According to Wikipedia, "an earmark is a congressional provision that directs approved funds to be spent on specific projects or that directs specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees."

In layman's terms, that means any legislator can make a case for money to be designated to whatever project he sees fit. That's not necessarily bad. Taxpayer.net has a complete list of all the earmarks submitted for this bill. They include things like sewer replacements, national park monuments visitor's centers, and clean air school buses (listen to my KCSN piece about the dangers of diesel school buses here).

But the problem with earmarks is that some legislators use the opportunity to direct funding to for-profit organizations and businesses that may have helped them out in the past. It's like the state level equivalent of Bush and Cheney giving all rebuilding contracts to Halliburton. That's the bad part. That's the controversial part. That's why President Obama is calling for earmark reform.

Earmark Reform
Obama doesn't want to eliminate earmarks. It's a great way to get money to small but needy organizations. But in order to curb government corruption, Obama suggests that "earmarks should have a 'legitimate and worthy' purpose, lawmakers should post their requests on their Web sites and that any earmark for a for-profit private company should be subjected to a bidding process and heightened scrutiny." Republicans have called this another example of reckless spending (a trait they say is common among democrats), and Senator McCain has taken to Twittering his top ten "Pork Projects" of the day. *Side note- visions of McCain mobile Twittering from the Senate floor mildly amuse me.

SenJohnMcCain is his name, and Twittering is his game.
While I can't bring myself to actually follow McCain, I did check out his last few weeks of updates for the purpose of this post. He chooses ten "pork projects" each day and counts them down, ten through one. Here is his most recent list (actually only 9, since he forgot a #3).

#1. $935,000 for Pasteurization of Shell Eggs, MI
#2. $190,000 for a Trolley Purchase, Las Marias, PR
#4. $50,000 for the City of Charlotte for gang prevention
#5. $237,500 for Vienna Sidewalk Construction, Vienna VA
#6. $95,000 for Extension of the Riverwalk Trail, City of Danville, VA
#7. $1 million for Shipment and storage of oil shale core samples
#8. $350,000 for the Minidoka National Historic Site
#9. $475,750 for Restore Manhattan Project Sites (NM)
#10. $142,500 for the Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota - brought to you by former Cong. James Ramstad

OK, OK. I'll concede to McCain a tiny little bit. I'm not sure about the near $1 million allocated to the pasteurization of eggs. But surely $50,000 towards gang prevention is acceptable, as is money designated to infrastructure repair. Many of McCain's other pork tweets include funding for arts commissions, and the building of teen centers and museums.

Are those projects SOOO bad?

John McCain, a "long-time earmark foe," thinks so, and he wants his 195,071 followers to know it.

You know what might be a better use of time Senator? Rather than attempting to divide this country even more than it already is with your tweetdowns, how about getting over your campaign loss and supporting our President's vision of a government united by the common good of our people? I'm just saying.