Mr. President Designate: Your Entire Stimulus is a Giant Earmark

The President Designate made a startling announcement today.

President-elect Barack Obama warned that he will inherit a $1 trillion budget deficit upon taking office, and pledged to ban all earmarks as an attempt to address both the "deficit of dollars and the deficit of trust."

"We're going to have to stop talking about budget reform. We're going to have to fully embrace it," he said after a meeting with his economic team this morning. "It's an absolute necessity."

He said his stimulus plan will "set a new, higher standard of accountability, transparency and oversight," and include an economic recovery oversight board, as well as an online platform so that citizens could monitor spending. He's expected to speak in greater detail about his plan later this week.

Now, let's leave aside for a minute how little credibility anyone has to claim an end to all earmarks when they themselves averaged a million Dollars in earmarks for everyday they were a Senator. What's really absurd is the idea that President Designate Obama wants to ban all earmarks even though the entire stimulus proposal is one giant earmark.
After all, he wants to do a series of public works projects. How will that work? States and municpalities will request funds for a local project. How do earmarks work? Congressman and Senators request funds for a local project. In other words, after we spend about $350 billion on a series of earmarks, then, President Designate Obama will ban all further earmarks. Furthermore, the idea that the stimulus will be open and transparent is absurd as well. It may be on the federal level but Obama can't control transparency once localities get the money. The public may know which municipalities get the money, but we won't have any idea what each of them will do with it once they get it.

That's sort of like a heroin addict saying that after binge that will last a month they will quit heroin forever. I've heard a lot of statements from a lot of politicians with a lot of chutzpah and this one challenges them all. The idea that someone that requested a million Dollars in earmarks daily while Senator will lead the charge to ban all earmarks is absurd enough on its own. The idea that he will ban them all right after one giant $350 billion earmark is just plain insulting.