Who won the debate? Obama or McCain?

Friday, September 12, 2008
Hypocrisy, pork, and earmarks...McCain was against Palin's pork spending before he was for it...

Wow...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain criticized two of his future running mate's hometown projects in broadsides in 2001 against congressional "pork-barrel" spending, records from the Arizona senator's office show.
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But when Palin served as mayor of her hometown of Wasilla, outside Anchorage, she obtained about $27 million in federal "earmarks" during her last four years in office, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

In a 2001 statement opposing a transportation spending bill McCain singled out for criticism about $3 million worth of those projects. McCain's list of "objectionable" spending included a $2.5 million road project for the town that then had a population of 5,500, as well as a $450,000 appropriation for an agricultural processing plant there.
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"As mayor of Wasilla, Gov. Palin was forced to work within the current system to obtain critical funding for a growing city," the campaign said in a statement. [Editor's Note: So much for being a "maverick"...]
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Palin already has been facing questions about her stump-speech claim to have said " 'Thanks, but no thanks' for that bridge to nowhere up in Alaska." Palin originally supported construction of the infamous bridge from Ketchikan to its airport on sparsely populated Gravina Island, but canceled work on the span in 2007 after the price tag increased from about $200 million to nearly $400 million and it became a symbol of congressional excess.



Amazing. The flip-flops just keep on rolling in from McCain-Palin...

I don't think you have listened to or have read Senator Obama's ideas on Energy.

It's quite simple. Alternative Energy sources. Green ones. Electric powered automobiles. windenergy. Solar Power. Those sources will free us from the use of Oil in ten years, according to Senator Om=bama

Look, I don't know, I never supported McCain until he was my only choice. I would think he should know? Is it a matter of definition? I have not gotten interested in earmarks to tell you the truth, because I have never looked at them as the primary problem, just a symptom of the problem. If he has it wrong, which I don't know, I will take your word for it

Earmarks Down, Not Up

McCain was way off the mark when he said that earmarks in federal appropriations bills had tripled in the last five years.

Quote:

McCain: But the point is that " you see, I hear this all the time. "It's only $18
billion." Do you know that it's tripled in the last five years?

In fact, earmarks have actually gone down. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, there was $22.5 billion worth of earmark spending in 2003. By 2008, that figure had come down to $17.2 billion. That's a decrease of 24 percent.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, another watchdog group, said in 2008 that "Congress has cut earmarks by 23 percent from the record 2005 levels," according to its analysis.

I always become frustrated when for example, the debate, the candidates were asked what would be your main policies following the financial crisis, what would you do, and immediately McCain launches into his sermon about earmarks and corruption, and government spending. Okay, John, that is a problem, but I am sitting there just hoping he would get off of that subject for once and address some of the other important issues relative to the economy.

What's funny is-- as an Obama supporter I see all other Obama supporters say the same thing. McCain lies, distorts etc.

, I will take your word for it, but having followed McCain for a number of years, my guess is he just is a little naive in regard to some things, but not a liar.