Thread: Defense Bill Loaded With Earmarks

Defense Bill Loaded With Earmarks

Last Updated: Tue, 09/29/2009 - 3:47pm


Although President Obama has repeatedly vowed to battle the special interests that severely inflated military spending in the past, he supports a proposed defense bill that contains billions in earmarks for projects the Pentagon did not request and does not want.

The $2.6 billion in earmarks will fund highly questionable projects that will largely benefit the financial supporters of the lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, who will vote for the massive $636 billion spending bill. The president’s support practically guarantees that the earmarks will get final congressional approval, according to the newspaper that broke the story this week.

Steering the largest chunk of tax dollars to his supporters and his home state is the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense, Mississippi’s Thad Cochran, who allocated a total of $212 million worth of earmarks in the 2010 military spending bill.

Twelve million will go to company that contributed thousands to Cochran’s campaign, nearly $11 million to a university whose professors and staff donated more than $10,000 to the senator and about $6 million to another firm that also donated heavily to Cochran and employs his former aide. The veteran legislator assures his earmarks are based on “national security interestsâ€

Obama lies.