[tomder55]

According to the Citizens Against Government Waste :

Hillary Clinton ranked 13th in the Senate with $200 million
Barak Obama ranked 28th in the Senate with $97 Million
John McCain was last with no earmarks requested .
And this is not atypical of Senator McCain.. . For years and years he has been trying to get rid of these projects.He has been a consistent opponent of earmark spending ;often taking on his own party .

BTW Shame on the Republican Senators ;they more than helped make fiscal 2008 the worst in history . The 3 worse offenders were all Republicans .1.Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Thad Cochran, R-Miss. with $892 million; 2.Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, with $469 million; and 3.Richard Shelby, R-Ala. with $465 million.

Next came the worse of the Democrats :
Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, 4th with 161 projects for $458.5 million.
5th Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va $386 million. Byrd received the Pantheon of Pork Award from the group for his lifetime worth of abuse.
The total value of Byrd’s pork projects was just ahead of 6th Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, 131 projects worth $385.5 million.

[excon]

Hello tom:

Those poor Arizonians... You assume pork is waste. I would too if I didn't get any. But, we got plenty here in Washington.

However, upon second thought... By NOT taking things everybody else IS taking, ISN'T doing anything about the TAKING. It's just cheating your own constituents, and making you feel superior.

excon

[tomder55]

He has been a consistent champion of eliminating pork . You on the other hand just justified the expenditure after condemning wasteful spending on other postings.

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

The system is broken. Until it's fixed, I'm glad my legislators don't make THEIR constituents bear the brunt of their idealism. That isn't how it works. If they did that, they wouldn't BE legislators with ideals.

The way to fix it, ISN'T to turn down money, while everybody else is lining up at the cash window. Fixing it, is fixing it. Nothing else is.

excon

[parttime]

Tom, might I ask, how much did John Mccain's co-hort in crime ( the other senator from az) request? I'd bet he ranks pretty high.

[excon]

Hello part:

$89,790,175: That's total value of the 92 pork barrel projects secured from the federal government by Arizona's Congressional delegation.

It's a small number compared to the $17.2 billion national total that Citizens Against Government Waste found in FY 2008's 12 appropriation bills.

With $14.17 of pork per capita, Arizona ranks 51st out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Smallest project: $56,400 for the “Phoenix Prosecutors Criminal Record System (Law Enforcement Technology and Interoperability - Community Oriented Policing Service)”

Largest project: $10,870,000 for “Field maintenance shop, Florence (Army National Guard)”

Sen. Jon Kyl brought home $69 million

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, brought home $0

excon

[tomder55]

Thanks excon ;as you see parttime that information is easily available. What you may not know is that McCain has frequently been at odds with members of the Senate ,both parties , over their frivilous earmark requests .
Ex yes the system is broken but I'm kind of surprised that you are supporting parochialism ahead of what's best for the country.

The Democrats took over Congress in 2006 and elimination of earmark spending was high on their agenda. The Republicans have also played lip service to this goal but John McCain lives what he preaches in this case.
What is sad is that a vote for fiscal responsibility frequently puts him at odds with his party. When he is President I predict he will keeps his veto pencil sharp.

Republican Jim Demint offered Amendment, number 4347, to the Senate Budget bill this year . The amendment, was “to establish an earmark moratorium for fiscal year 2009,” All three presidential candidates co-sponsored the amendment(I guess Hillary figures there is no chance in getting that $$ for the Woodstock museum this year ) .The fact that all 3 signed onto the amendment is proof that this could be a big campaign issues this year . The fact that Obama and Hillary signed on after having themselves requested funds for dubious projects... well Excon thinks they are doing what's best for their constituency instead of what's good for the nation. I'll run that by McCain's campaign strategist and see what they can do with it.

The Amendment was roundly defeated by a vote of 29-71 . Both Az Senators voted for the amendment . Hillary and Obama also voted for it but their compadres in their respective states ,Shumer and Durbin voted nay. ALL TOLD ONLY 3 Democrats including the candidates voted for the amendment ;the other being Hillary's good buddy and likely VP running mate Evan Bayh of Indiana.

Of the 16 current Republican members of the Senate who were elected in the past three elections, all but three voted for the Amendment. Two of those no votes were Senators Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and David Vitter (Louisiana), both from states who have received massive amounts of earmarked spending, including the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” fiasco and billions in post-Katrina relief, respectively.