Presidential Candidate’s Earmark Spending, so Much for Reducing Wasteful Spending

Democrat candidates ran on government reform and reducing earmarks in last November’s election. However once in power it must just be to tempting to resist earmarks, as can be seen by some of the spending by presidential candidates.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton(D-N.Y.), who has rejected Obama’s attacks that she is too close to lobbyists, arranged a $3 million earmark this spring for the development of hydrogen-fuel and hybrid technology by General Motors, whose lobbyists include one of her biggest fundraisers.

Three million dollars to a company whose lobbyists include a huge Hillary fundraiser, how typical. It’s just a coincidence I’m sure.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), whose presidential campaign frequently attacks excessive spending by Congress, requested more than five dozen earmarks this year worth tens of millions of dollars for causes as diverse as rebuilding a Texas theater, funding a local trolley and helping his state’s shrimp industry.

Ron Paul, the conservative constitutionalist, out requested Hillary in earmarks? Say it isn’t so. At least that theater he asked for the funds to rebuild will be comfortable for him when he is unemployed next year.

And what about the outsider himself, Barack Obama?

Just a few months before he joined the presidential race, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) co-sponsored a little-noticed proposal to require the Pentagon to spend $2 million on brain trauma research for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At least that is a worthwhile cause to request money for, even if he has been stabbing these same soldiers in the back for all these years. But then you read about a connection.

The beneficiary of the Aug. 2, 2006, earmark from him and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) was undeniably close to home: the University of Chicago, where his wife, Michelle, worked as the university hospital’s vice president for community and external affairs.

Yet another strange coincidence. So much for the new open and honest congress cutting down on wasteful spending.

Read the Washington Post article here.