McCain Criticizes Obama On The Senate Floor
McCain noted his former opponent's campaign promise to reduce pork barrel spending and then pointed to the omnibus spending bill signed by the president and now before Congress, which he said is loaded with earmarks.
"So much for the promise of change," McCain said. "During the campaign President Obama said he would work to limit earmarks and make them more transparent."
"It is the president of the United States' business to do what he said," McCain added, specifically citing a September presidential debate where Mr. Obama said he would eliminate earmarks.
McCain quoted President Obama saying this: "We need earmark reform. And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure we're not spending money unwisely."
McCain also said it was "insulting" to the American people for President Obama's economic advisor, Peter Orzag, to say that the White House wants to move on from the omnibus bill and characterize it as last year's business.
Later on the Senate floor, Senator McCain offered his amendment to the $410 billion dollar omnibus bill. McCain's plan "adopts a long term Continuing resolution (CR) which would fund the government at last year's levels and do away with the earmarks and eliminate '7.7 billion' in wasteful spending," Nolen reports.
"While I want to say it is time to put a halt to business as usual, I find myself thinking this level of funding defies that description," McCain said. "It's beyond anything I have ever witnessed and is extremely alarming."
In addition to listing specific earmarks he finds the most reprehensible, McCain said he has been twittering the "top ten" most egregious and that at this rate it would take him "almost three years" to list all of the 9,000 pork projects present in the bill.
"I have been through some of them before but they make you laugh and they make you cry," he said.