2008 first presidential debate, at Ole Miss: on Government Reform

Barack Obama: Eliminating earmarks isn’t enough; but I’ll check every line

OBAMA: Nobody is denying that $18 billion is important. Absolutely we need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely. But the fact is that eliminating earmarks alone is not a recipe for how we’re going to get the middle class back on track.

John McCain: Get earmarks under control to deal with the financial crisis

A: The first thing we have to do is get spending under control in Washington. We have no presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society. We Republicans came to power to change government and government changed us. The worst symptom of this disease is what Sen. Coburn calls “earmarking as a gateway drug,” because it’s a gateway to out-of-control spending and corruption. We have former members of Congress now residing in federal prison because of the evils of this earmarking and pork-barrel spending. We spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana It was $3 million of our taxpayers’ money and it has got to be brought under control. As president, I’ve got a pen and I’m going to veto every single spending bill that comes across my desk. I will make them famous. You will know their names.

John McCain: Obama requested for $932M of pork projects; I fought pork

McCAIN: Obama suspended requests for pork barrel projects after he was running for president. He didn’t happen to see that light there in the first three years as a member of the US Senate. $932 million in requests maybe to Obama is not a lo of money. It’s only $18 billion. Do you know it’s tripled in the last five years? Do you know it’s gone completely out of control, to the point where it corrupts people? It corrupts people. That’s why we have people under federal indictment and charges. It’s a system that’s got to be cleaned up. I have fought against it. I was called the sheriff by one of the senior members of the Appropriations Committee. I didn’t win Miss Congeniality in the US Senate.

John McCain: FactCheck: Earmarks have gone down in last 5 years

In fact, earmarks have actually gone down. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, there was $22.5 billion worth of earmark spending in 2003. By 2008, that figure had come down to $17.2 billion. That’s a decrease of 24%.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, another watchdog group, said in 2008 that “Congress has cut earmarks by 23% from the record 2005 levels,” according to its analysis.

And while we’re on the subject of earmarks, McCain repeated a misleading line, claiming, “We spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana.” The study in question was done by the US Geological Survey. McCain voted for the bill that made appropriations for the study. He did propose some changes to the bill, but none that nixed the bear funding.