President Obama caving in to earmark spending

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite campaign promises to take a machete to lawmakers’ pet projects, President Barack Obama is quietly caving to funding nearly 8,000 of them this year, drawing a stern rebuke Monday from his Republican challenger in last fall’s election.

Arizona Sen. John McCain said it is “insulting to the American people” for Obama’s budget director to indicate over the weekend that the president will sign a $410 billion spending bill with what Republicans critics say is nearly $5.5 billion in so-called “earmark” projects.

“So much for the promise of change,” McCain said in this year’s version of what has become his annual tirade against pork-barrel spending.

Democrats contend that earmarked pet projects total only $3.8 billion, less than 1 percent of the amount Congress is approving to finance government programs through September — compared with the 1.3 percent that Republicans call pork spending.

White House Budget Director Peter Orsazg said Sunday that the new administration wants to “move on ... get this bill done, get it into law and move forward.” Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, called the bill and its 8 percent spending increase over 2008 “last year’s business.”

Obama is hardly the first president to promise to make Congress change its pork-barreling ways, and he certainly won’t be the last. But he is the first to retreat so quickly, after only six weeks in the White House. Only a week ago, Obama was pressing Democratic leaders in Congress to pare back the earmarks.

The president, however, hit a brick wall with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Democrats who treasure their right to send taxpayer money to their states and districts for park improvements, university research grants, equipment for police departments and redevelopment projects.

“I’m here to tell everyone that we have an obligation as members of Congress to help direct spending to our states,” Reid told reporters last week.

That’s the kind of treatment President George W. Bush got from his allies in Congress after he took office eight years ago. Like Obama, he wanted to curb lawmakers’ appetite for pet projects, but he also was firmly rebuffed.