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JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

Congress approves massive $410 bil spending bill

World Mar. 11, 2009 - 10:04AM JST ( 12 )

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12 Comments

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techallMar. 11, 2009 - 11:21AM JST

Count em folks, 7991 earmarks - that quite a hunk of change - you can believe in.
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adaydreamMar. 11, 2009 - 02:21PM JST

Yep it is.

Now to this year's business. < :-)
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SushiSake3Mar. 11, 2009 - 03:06PM JST

techall, those earmarks are worth a blistering $1.8 billion, out of $410 billion.

That's a staggering 0.4% of the total.

That's way down on earmark averages under the previous president.

Republicans, who are the main ones moaning about said earmarks, inserted 40% of them (how do you spell 'hypocrisy'?)

And let's not mention, a bunch of Republicans voted for the bill.

Your protestations flutter like leaves in the wind.... :-)
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skipthesongMar. 11, 2009 - 03:41PM JST

Republicans, who are the main ones moaning about said earmarks, inserted 40% of them (how do you spell 'hypocrisy'?)

And let's not mention, a bunch of Republicans voted for the bill."

Ok, let's kick their butts too. keep looking at those ear marks, I couldn't care if they came from the universe.
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rollonarteMar. 11, 2009 - 04:03PM JST

To the embarrassment of Obama — who promised during last year’s campaign to force Congress to curb its pork-barrel ways — the bill contains 7,991 earmarks totaling $5.5 billion,

Obama ain't embarrassed.

Pathological liars are incapable of such emotions.
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techallMar. 11, 2009 - 04:04PM JST

Does anybody see the words Republican or Democrat in my post??? I am talking about change - which does not seem to be happening.
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techallMar. 11, 2009 - 04:10PM JST

@sushisake; This story says the earnmarks total 5.5 billion so where did you come up with the 1.8 billion figure? @skipthesong: it's spelled O-B-A-M-A
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SushiSake3Mar. 11, 2009 - 04:35PM JST

techall, sorry, you are correct - 5.5 billion.
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SezWho2Mar. 11, 2009 - 07:08PM JST

$1.8B or $5.5B, it doesn't make any difference. If you go the ideological route, any earmarks at all are high crimes or misdemeanors--never mind it is the Senate that is committing them. If go the practical route, we could have earmarked a lot more without causing any real harm.
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rollonarteMar. 11, 2009 - 07:17PM JST

This just prolongs the recession by a year or two. No big deal.
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techallMar. 11, 2009 - 08:06PM JST

Reality check people. Earmarks are why congressmen and senators are elected. They are not crimes. People send representatives to Washington to bring spending programs home to their state or district. If they don't do this, they district loses jobs and the representative loses his job. The point is that some people pledged to do away with them and they have not, lets hope they don't.
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SushiSake3Mar. 11, 2009 - 10:16PM JST

Heh, the way the previous president kept tacking Iraq war spending bills to his Budgets, I think he thought those expenditures were earmarks, too. :-)