McCain opposes earmarks — except for the ones he likes

April 17, 2008

When presenting hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts this week, John McCain and his campaign said the cuts wouldn’t necessarily worsen the deficit. The key, they said, is McCain’s commitment to cutting spending by eliminating congressional earmarks.

On its face, the claim is simply foolish. Even if McCain could eliminate the entire practice of placing earmarks in the budget — a dubious proposition — Taxpayers for Common Sense did an exhaustive review of the 2008 spending bills and found $18.3 billion in earmarks. With McCain’s tax cuts poised to cost about 22 times that much, the “solution” isn’t exactly budget neutral.

But this gets even more entertaining when we take a closer look at what’s included among the earmarks McCain plans to eliminate.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has long portrayed himself as a staunch supporter of Israel. “Obviously,” McCain has said, “I have been a very strong proponent to the State of Israel.” He recently told the Jewish Journal that if elected president, he would “hit the ground running” and immediately get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

It is astounding then that McCain has essentially vowed to eliminate U.S. funding assistance for Israel.

As it turns out, McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said McCain, if elected, would eliminate earmarks based on the definition used by the Congressional Research Service. And that includes, among other things, “economic and military aid to Israel and Egypt.”

So, does McCain plan to cut off economic and military aid to Israel? No, that funding qualifies as a good earmark.

It looks like McCain hadn’t thought this one through.

John McCain will make an exception for at least one category of spending in his pledge to “veto every bill with earmarks”: aid to Israel.

ThinkProgress pointed out earlier that military and other assistance to Israel is included in definition McCain’s aides say they’re using of the term, to the tune of about $2.9 billion, about 5% of the total, depending on how you count.

“Senator McCain will bring wasteful spending under control, and he will ensure America remains committed to the security of Israel, including maintaining America’s assistance levels,” emails spokesman Brian Rogers.

That’s one thing about spending cuts: Much harder when you get to the details.

Quite right. It’s a reminder of why it’s just so difficult to take McCain seriously on matters of public policy. Pressed for details on what he believes, McCain a) loves vague generalities; b) gets easily confused; or c) decides his commitments are a lot more flexible than he’d like us to believe.

As for earmarks, he’s embraced a simplistic maxim: earmarks = waste. Confronted with evidence to the contrary, his opposition wanes. But therein lies the point — every earmark has a purpose and supporters who can defend it.

Where will McCain draw the line? He doesn’t know. How much will it save? He doesn’t know. When can we expect more concrete answers? He doesn’t know.

After a quarter-century in Congress, McCain’s quite an impressive candidate, isn’t he?

Post Script: Just as an aside, if Dems really wanted to be aggressive, for the rest of the year, they’d argue, “McCain said, if elected, he would cut off aid to Israel, but later changed his mind.” Just sayin’.

When Congress says that they are going to allocate X amount of dollars to infrastructure repair, aren’t earmarks the way to say that Y% or amount of those X dollars should go to repairing this bridge or that highway? Or does the X dollar amount come from all the earmarks that have been gathered together to make the infrastructure repair bill? Or is it only a bad earmark if the target of the earmark has absolutely nothing to do with the purpose of the bill or the target is truly a waste of money from some non-partisan organization’s point of view?

  • So he was for them until he was against them and then he is for the ones that help his buddys and contributors?

  • After pondering this challenge, the Zealots and True Believers in workfare and its articles of faith might want to start rethinking whether same makes any sense in the current socioeconomic state of affairs.

    Especially considering that the Lower Classes lack, by and large, adequate and realistic job skills as prevent their holding down decent work, not the “lack of proper moral compass” these zealots are forever suggesting. Study after study confirms this.

  • I can assure you that John Hagee would denounce McCain if funding to Israel were tampered with. You do recall Hagee,the fire breathing evangelical that MCain courted for one year? The same Hagee who has repeatedly denounced the Catholic Church as the Great Whore of Babylon.? Hmmmh wonder if McCain will invite the Pope over for barbeque and donuts this week? Incidentally,Hagee is one of the members of the Board of Regents at Oral Roberts University-yes,the same board being investigated by Grassley for its proliferation of prosperity preachers-Copeland,Hinn,Meyer,Creflo Dollar. Interestingly enough,Hagee isn’t being investigated,however. Coincidentally, a recently filed lawsuit alleges $1 Billion was run through a secret account at ORU ,while all the while the University was begging for alms,and allegedlyoperating in the RED, according to what was being told to the televangelist’s (Richard Roberts-Oral’s son)audience.

  • Hagee, leader of the politically powerful group Christians United for Israel (CUFI), has been criticized for controversial remarks about Catholics and about America’s role in the Middle East. Some say his message is dangerous: “It is time for America to … consider a military preemptive strike against Iran to prevent a nuclear holocaust in Israel and a nuclear attack in America.”

    “If a line has to be drawn, draw it around Christians and Jews. We are united.”
    -Pastor John Hagee, CUFI Founder

    John Hagee, along with other Christian Evangelical leaders, created Christians United for Israel (CUFI) less than two years ago, yet it has already grown into one of the largest and most politically influential Christian grassroots organizations in the country.

    “When 50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel, it is a match made in heaven.”
    John Hagee________________________________________________________________For a deifnitive look at this issue,I suggest Bill Moyer’s Journal,March7,2008 -PBS . Simply click on archives.

  • Earmarks are not additional spending added to Appropriation subcommittee bills, but rather carve outs from within each bills allocation.

    You have two types of Earmarks:

    (1) Presidential… where the President from his National throne decides how to spend the funds across the country through his budget, and/or

    (2) Congressional… where membes of congress from those 50 states advise the subcommittees what priorities lie within those states.

    The majority of Congressional earmarks are thoroughly vetted in the subcommittee process… and worthwhile. Who is better equiped with the knowledge to decide how to spend limited federal funds in states than the people from their states?

    The majority of earmarks with the black eyes were inserted at the insistance of chairmen for their favored projects either during the committee process or afterwards…

    The public instictively think earmarks are bad… until a worthwhile project (perhaps a bridge that needs repair before it falls into the river?) in their state is slashed and the President sends the money to one of his priorities… you know… like $400+ million a day in Iraq.

  • What is so refreshing about the way McCain uses earmarks, in comparison to others, is how uncomfortable he appears to be when he does it, always in the shadows, out of public view, when no one is looking. If we reported it, we could almost imagine the pain on his face as he, yet again, has to stoop to work within the system he so desperately wants to change.

    McCain’s earmarks never benefit him, but the good people whom he represents, business leaders in his community who might not be so forthcoming with their money if McCain campaigned solely on reforming the political system.

    Yes, the McCain of earmarks is not the same McCain who grills us hotdogs and sausages (Obama is too elitist to provide us anything better than cold cuts!). The McCain of pork barrel politics is not the man we know, sharing juicy gossip, just between us pals. It is understandable that the public would want to be in on the conversation, too, but we should not punish a man for his forthrightness. We must be as resolute in not punishing McCain for his straight talk as we are in promoting revealing gaffes of carefully scripted campaigns. It is our job to protect our readers from themselves.

  • Why doesn’t somebody point out that the earmarks are so insignificant ($18.3 billion) that they are less than the interest on the annual deficits that McCain will create (5% * $400 billion [assuming the 100 year Iraq war] = $20 billion annually).

    Similarly, when McCain blathers about the $1 trillion tax increase due to expiration of the Bush tax cuts, point out that McCain instead will increase the national debt by $1.25 trillion ($1 trillion plus 5% compounded interest over 4 years). Deficits cost us at least 5% more annually than taxes do.

    An interesting chart would be a comparison of interest being paid to China and other potentially hostile countries versus the defense spending of those countries. The increased interest expense due to the Bush tax cuts probably have funded most of China’s defense budget during the last 6 years. That surely strengthens our national security

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