earmarks, Congress and the presidential candidates

From the WSJ editorialists in March, an update on attempted (and failed) earmark reform in Congress and the positions of McCain, Obama, and Clinton (hat tip: Linda Christiansen). The editorial included a table from Citizens Against Government Waste, noting that McCain had requested no earmarks in 2008; Obama requested 53 for $126 million; and Clinton requested 212 for $266 million.

In the earmark wars, this week will see something of a showdown on the Senate floor. Republican Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri plan to offer an amendment to require that any earmarked spending project for 2009 get a two-thirds vote to go forward.

John McCain thinks the vote is important enough that he's returning from the campaign trail to vote for the measure. "I absolutely support the amendment to abolish [earmarks] altogether," he says, building on his campaign pledge to veto any bill with earmarks if he becomes President.

In a sign of where the politics is moving on earmarks, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton announced yesterday that they'll sign on as 11th-hour cosponsors. It appears they have suddenly found religion on the issue, because both sponsored a hefty number of earmarks in 2008.

The main opponents are Appropriators in both parties who don't want to give up control of their favor factory. When Democrat Henry Waxman proposed a similar moratorium last month, all 22 Democrats in the Budget Committee voted no. GOP Senators are no better, though they are doing their political dirty work behind the scenes to kill the DeMint-McCaskill effort....


Then from Chuck Muth, the list of 23 Senators who joined McCain in supporting the reform-- a one-year moratorium on earmarks.
-Sessions of Alabama
-Kyl and McCain of Arizona
-Allard of Colorado
-Martinez of Florida
-Chambliss and Isakson of Georgia
-Grassley of Iowa
-McConnell of Kentucky
-Ensign of Nevada
-Sununu of New Hampshire
-Burr and Dole of North Carolina
-Coburn and Inhofe of Oklahoma
-DeMint and Graham of South Carolina
-Thune of South Dakota
-Alexander and Corker of Tennessee
-Cornyn of Texas
-Barrasso and Enzi of Wyoming