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Clinton Ranks Among Top 10 Earmark Users

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By PAUL KANE, The Washington Post

Published: February 14, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., helped secure more than $340 million worth of special home state projects in last year's spending bills, placing her among the top 10 Senate recipients of what are commonly known as earmarks, according to a new study by a government watchdog group.

Working in nearly every case with her New York colleagues, Clinton supported almost four times as much spending on earmarked projects as her rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., whose $91 million total placed him in the bottom quarter of senators who seek earmarks, the study showed.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the likely GOP presidential nominee, was one of five senators to reject earmarks entirely, part of his long-standing position that the measures prompt needless spending.

As a campaign issue, earmarks highlight significant differences in the spending philosophies of the three top candidates. Clinton repeatedly has supported earmarks as a way of bringing home money for vital projects, while Obama uses them to support only public entities.

McCain already is using his blanket opposition to earmarked spending as a line of attack against Clinton, even running an Internet ad mocking her $1 million earmark request for a museum devoted to the Woodstock music festival. Obama has been criticized for using a 2006 earmark to secure money for the University of Chicago hospital where his wife worked until last year.

The new report, by Taxpayers for Common Sense, is the first to compile all the earmarks each lawmaker inserted in the spending bills for an entire fiscal year.

It notes the explosive growth of the practice, which amounted to more than $18 billion in fiscal year 2008.

Stung by criticism of the practice, President Bush and an increasing number of lawmakers have started openly campaigning against the use of earmarks.

Bush, in his final State of the Union last month, vowed to veto any spending bills for 2009 that do not cut back on earmarks, and 22 House members have sworn off seeking them. Although most are Republicans, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and key committee chairman, joined Wednesday.

"Congressional spending through earmarks is out of control," he said.

Lawmakers previously were allowed to insert multimillion-dollar items in spending bills without publicly identifying themselves as sponsors. House and Senate Democrats enacted sunshine laws last year, requiring sponsorship of earmarks.

Although they are still just a tiny fraction of the federal budget, earmarks remain a multibillion-dollar business on Capitol Hill. Congress inserted 12,881 earmarks, worth $18.3 billion, in spending bills that President Bush signed into law, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. That is a 23 percent drop from the record level of earmarked funds for fiscal year 2005.

Democrats took advantage of their new hold on power by securing 57 percent of total earmarked dollars in fiscal 2008. There was even a $4.5 billion pot of earmarks supported by members from both parties.

The new report showed that Clinton, for example, co-sponsored a $1.6 million earmark to fund technology development by a defense contractor and steered $3 million to the Rochester Institute of Technology for a fuel cell technology program.

Obama, meanwhile, helped steer $3.4 million to Rock Island Arsenal for a military fire and police building, and was sole sponsor of $750,000 for an education initiative at Benedictine University.

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