An emphatic talking point in the McCain campaign is his rant against earmarks and government spending in general. From the April 20 edition of This Week
Here’s $100 billion right here for you, George. Two years in a
row, the president of the United States has signed in
a law, two big-spending, pork-barrel-laden bills worth $35 billion.
That increases the budget, the baseline of the budget. In the years
before that, $65 billion. You do away with those, there’s $100
billion right there, before you look at any agency of government.
he implies he could balance the budget simply by eliminating $100 billion in earmarks. He builds to a feverish crescendo and takes out a pen and claims that
"I got an old ink pen, my friends, and the first . . . big-spending bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it. You will know their names. I will make them famous and we'll stop this corruption,"
The only problems are:
- There has never been a budget with $100 billion in earmarks.
- Thanks to Barack Obama, we can already find their names.