On Wednesday, President Obama signed a massive $410 billion omnibus spending bill - a piece of legislation that contains nearly 9,000 earmarks and increases non-emergency federal spending to levels not seen since the Carter years.  Newspaper editorials blasted the President’s decision to sign a bill loaded with earmarks on the very day he was announcing earmark “reform.”

Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) had called on the President to veto the omnibus, promising to deliver Republican votes to sustain his veto.  Unfortunately, the President signed the bill - behind closed doors.  On the very same day he OK’d a bill with 9,000 earmarks, the President made a big public showing of “reform the earmarking process” - which prompted Leader Boehner to ask, “where’s the beef?  Where’s the reform?”

At the very least, earmarks lead to wasteful government spending; in the worst of cases they are simply corrupt.  And the earmarks in the omnibus are no different.  As the Los Angeles Times reported this week, “The spending bill Obama signed Wednesday is packed with such earmarks, including 13 that benefit clients of the PMA Group, a lobbying firm in Washington under federal investigation for alleged campaign-finance abuses.”

Leader Boehner has maintained a ‘no earmarks’ policy throughout his 18 years of service in the House of Representatives.

Newspapers were flummoxed by the President’s actions.  Reaction from around the country:

Christian Science Monitor: “Obama’s weak snort at pork”

Many Americans seem ready for Mr. Obama to veto this bill as proof he will exercise the fiscal discipline he so often promised in his campaign and continues to advocate.  They already have doubts about his $787 billion stimulus bill that received scant review in Congress before being passed and is likely laced with poorly thought-out mandates to spend.  These earmarks add insult to injury.  When will the president stand up and say thus far and no farther to such dubious spending?

The Washington Post: “He’ll Quit Tomorrow”

Earmarks are symbols of broader indiscipline, and they also are conducive to corruption.  So it was disappointing that Mr. Obama shied away from a tougher stance even as he congratulated himself for doing more.  He called earmarks for private companies "the single most corrupting element of this practice.’  Why, then, not do away with such earmarks entirely?

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