Day 51: Obama (Reluctantly) Signs Spending Bill

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: White House

(CBS)

On his fifty-first day in office, President Obama signed the $410 omnibus spending bill that came under fire because it came with potentially-unnecessary earmarks.

Despite ordering a review of his predecessor's use of signing statements, the president issued a signing statement with the bill saying certain provisions "raise constitutional concerns" and may not be followed.

He also discussed earmarks, noting that they can be useful but also "have been used as a vehicle for waste, fraud, and abuse." He vowed to reform the earmarking process and said the administration will eliminate earmarks determined to have "no legitimate public purpose."

(AP)

The president also created a council on women and girls. He noted lingering inequality between men and women and said that ""when any of our citizens cannot fulfill their potential because of factors that have nothing to do with their talent, their character, their work ethic, that says something about the state of our democracy."

Below, check out Chip Reid's CBS Evening News report on the president's signing of the bill and comments on earmarks.

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
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by PacificGatePost March 12, 2009 11:30 PM EDT: Where is the inquisitive reporting on this Administration?

IS THE FOURTH ESTATE A HISTORICAL CONCEPT?

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2009/03/fourth-estate-rip.html

Democracy needs its fourth pillar to survive.; Reply to this comment


by Frank-Richards March 12, 2009 4:47 PM EDT: Obama should have deleted all earmarks by Republican politicians, while retaining all those by Democrat politicians. This would have been a defeat for the Republican Party in the way that Republicans deserve.; Reply to this comment


by hopeful08 March 12, 2009 11:05 AM EDT: A lot of misplaced reporting on earmarks. All 9000 or so earmarks account for 2% of the bill. The othe 98% is of bill is about 8% more than last year's budget. So eliminating ALL earmarks would do nothing to reduce the growth in the government budget. Also, earmarks don't add to spending anyway...they only redirect the money already allocated to un-reviewed projects. This happens because the basic amount of budget is ratified top-down, not bottom-up. Its nonsense to think that a President can simply eliminate earmarks by threatening a veto of the entire bill...since every congress-person thinks their own earmarks are the worthy ones they need to get re-elected. At best, a President can call out a handful as wasteful..which is what they have been doing for decades. That is pretty difficult to do when there are 9000 of them. Pay attention the earmark reforms that Obama is proposing, those have a shot at real change in the earmark process.; Reply to this comment