Applesauce
Pat Cunningham offers an unabashedly liberal perspective on national politics. A note of caution: The language gets a litttle salty on some of the sites to which this blog links. So, don’t say you weren’t warned. By the way, this blog’s name is inspired by the Will Rogers quote, “All politics is applesauce.” |
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September 27th, 2008 at 11:42am Pat Cunningham
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For all the talk about earmarks in last night’s debate, the fact of the matter is that they amount to relatively little money in the overall scheme of federal spending.
In the pie chart above (hat-tip to Brad DeLong, by the way), that extremely tiny little slice at the top represents earmarks.
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2 Comments Add your own
1. DingDong | September 27th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Funny, Obama stop asking for earmarks right before he started his campaign for President. Must be more important than we thought.
2. Mr. Baseball | September 27th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
This debate over earmarks is ridiculous. Most so-called earmarks are for projects that need to be done, but Congress doesn’t have the courage or foresight to pass a massive public works bill to rebuild the infrastructure of our country. The problem with earmarks is the process is not open and transparent, with these projects being tacked onto other measures. Ever since the Reagan administration told us that government spending other than defense is bad, there have been fewer federal dollars for projects that need to be done, but are unaffordable unless the federal government steps in. The more we delay these projects, the more expensive they will be. What’s really shameful is the inefficient and corrupt way we’re spending money to rebuild Iraq, while our infrastructure is crumbling.
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