CBS' Couric, Reid report omnibus is "loaded," "filled," and "stuffed" with earmarks, don't note they are less than 2 percent of bill
SUMMARY: On the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric stated that the omnibus spending bill was "filled with earmarks," and Chip Reid reported that the bill was "loaded with about eighty-five hundred pet projects known as earmarks, inserted by members of Congress without legislative review." But at no point did they note that according to most estimates, earmarks constitute less than 2 percent of the bill's total spending.
During the March 11 broadcast of the CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric stated that the omnibus spending bill was "filled with earmarks." Likewise, chief White House correspondent Chip Reid reported that the bill was "loaded with about eighty-five hundred pet projects known as earmarks, inserted by members of Congress without legislative review." But at no point during their report did Couric or Reid note that according to most estimates, earmarks constitute less than 2 percent of the bill's total spending. As Media Matters for America has noted, Taxpayers for Common Sense estimates earmarks in the bill total $7.7 billion -- or 1.9 percent of the total bill -- while Democrats estimate the number is $3.8 billion -- or 0.9 percent -- and the Republican staff of the House Appropriations Committee estimate the number is $5.5 billion -- or 1.3 percent.
As Media Matters has noted, numerous media outlets have devoted significant coverage to the earmarks in the bill despite their small percentage of the bill's total spending. In many instances, the media have allowed attacks by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other opponents of the omnibus bill to dominate their coverage of the legislation -- at times themselves characterizing the bill as laden with "pork."
Indeed, as Media Matters Executive Vice President Jamison Foser noted, washingtonpost.com political blogger Ben Pershing wrote during a March 10 "Post Politics Hour" online chat: "Earmarks definitely do get a disproportionately large amount of press coverage, given the relatively small sliver of federal spending they represent. I bet if you asked the average voter how much of federal spending is earmarked, they would guess a number a lot higher than it actually is. Which I suppose is the fault of us in the political press for doing a poor job explaining."
From the March 11 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric:
COURIC: Also tonight: He campaigned against earmarks, but today, President Obama signed a bill loaded with them behind closed doors.
[...]
COURIC: Meanwhile, here at home, President Obama signed a spending bill today to keep the government operating. It's a bill he himself calls imperfect because it's filled with earmarks, the kind of pork-barrel spending he campaigned against. Chip Reid is at the White House tonight. And Chip, no photo op for this signing.
REID: That's absolutely right, Katie. The last thing the president wanted was a high-profile ceremony, as he signed a bill stuffed with pork-barrel spending.
[begin video clip]
REID: Under the glare of television lights, the president today spoke of restoring accountability to government.
OBAMA: I ran for president pledging to change the way business is done in Washington.
REID: But behind closed doors, it was, critics say, business as usual, as the president quietly signed a $410 billion domestic spending bill -- eleven hundred pages loaded with about eighty-five hundred pet projects known as earmarks, inserted by members of Congress without legislative review. For example, $950,000 for the Myrtle Beach Convention Center, 238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii. Some are the handiwork of former lawmakers who now work for the president. Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has $6.5 million in projects for Illinois.
And it's not just Democrats. About 40 percent of the earmarks were inserted by Republicans, even retired lawmakers. Remember Republican Senator Larry Craig, arrested in a bathroom sting? He retired, but his legacy lives on through a million dollars in earmarks for Idaho.
During the campaign, Mr. Obama promised to reform the process.
OBAMA: Our earmark system, what's called pork-barrel spending in Washington, is fraught with abuse.
REID: And today, he did propose new standards of openness that all earmarks be posted on congressional websites and scrutinized in public hearings. So why, then, did he sign this bill, which violates those standards?
OBAMA: I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it's necessary for the ongoing functions of government.
REID: In short, the White House says it's time to move on. This bill was last year's business.
HOUSE MINORITY LEADER JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): It's easy to say, "Well, it was last year's business." This is a new Congress, and he's our new president. We had to send the bill to him, and he's the president and can sign it or veto it. So he missed a great opportunity.
[end video clip]
REID: The president describes this bill as a departure point, the last bill of its kind that will get through on his watch. His critics will be watching to see if he lives up to that promise, Katie.
In the mind of gops, only when it's defense-related or military spending. Then it's stimulative as all get out.
This was not a stimulus bill...it was a government spending bill that was necessary for the federal government to continue operating.
'He missed a great opportunity...'? What is Boehner talking about? A great opportunity to slide America further into a depression? These people used to make me sick, then they meade me just laugh. Now I'm back at the sick part...
well yeah......cause remember from 1933-1937, things started to improve thanks to FDR and the "Repo"licans talked him into budget control and things slid backwards.
that way they can say " see he made it worse"
Facts, facts, all you people do is talk about facts !
Well, they do have a well known liberal bias.
well maybe not this.......but the events that led to the necessity of this yeah that sure as hell is their fault.
While mmfa bumbles with the effort to turn billions of dollars into an insignificant amount...they have swerved into the real problem.
The fools we have sent to Washington as our representatives can't count or even add. They can't agree on how many earmarks are in the bill or even how much they total. For anyone satisfied with this outrageous incompetence...you deserve what you get.
Sweet fancy moses...mmfa supporting the fact that the amount is miniscule and they can't even report what that number really amounts to...and the idiots in congress have stuffed it so full of crap they don't have a clue what it amounts totals.
mmfa, congress, and all the inside the beltway nerds have lost all sense of reality.
While the media obsesses over 2%, which according to you is the right thing to do since it's a lot of money, the other 98% slips through without any review or commentary of any kind.
I assume you think the 98% is a lot of money and that you want exact details on every penny on it. But you won't get it because you want to know more about the 2%.
This is a big country and you really need to get a sense of proportion. Is a coupon for $100 off a great offer? Depends if it's for a pizza or a car.
I get your point...but I don't agree with your premise.
I'm not "only" concerned with the 2%...I'm alarmed with the entire cavalier attitude about spending by congress and the president...both current and past.
The spending has been out of control for a long time...and that's beyond shameful.
Many of the pork projects are worthwhile but the damnable truth is that our congressmen are simply using them to buy votes and they couldn't care less about their worthiness.
Proportion matters little to me when the topic is honesty...and $6-7 billion is a lot of money however you cut it...especially when it is spent with no oversight...and for dishonest reasons.
Right now I'm much more about efficacy than honesty. And in quieter times, I'm more about transparency than honesty. Better to have the tools to find liars rather than try to elect honest people.
But from your perspective, I don't think the earmark procedure has much bearing on whether the $400 billion is more honest than the $7 billion. If you want to see whether the government is being cavalier with your money, you might want to start with the $400 billion and demand that the media do the same.
And if you like honesty, the people who are pretending the whole bill is earmarks must REALLY tick you off.
-- Better to have the tools to find liars rather than try to elect honest people. -- steeve
I'm all for those tools...but it's a sad day when we abandon our efforts to elect honest representatives.
While the media does a damn poor job of reporting on the spending by congress...they are not the problem...it's the dishonesty and corruption of the spending habits of congress...to which I've been opposed for a long time.
I hope we havent' devolved as a nation to accepting the premise that we are down to having to choose between the least dishonest actions of our representatives as our only option.
* bold emphasis mine.
you contradict yourself in the same short sentence; if a project is worthwhile, than logically, it isn't "pork". i have no idea how worthy any of the earmarks are. of course, nor do you, and certainly not sen. "i'm a batsh*t crazy old fart" mccain. ignorance hasn't stopped either of you from whining about them. neither has it stopped any of the talking heads or ms. couric.
remember the infamous 50 million dollar, alaskan "bridge to nowhere", championed by ex-sen. stevens? it was to go to an island with only 50 people living on it. obviously "porkP, right? maybe, maybe not. what was rarely, if ever, mentioned was that it ultimately connected to an airport on that sparsely populated island.
again, pork or not pork, i don't know. however, in the absence of all the facts, you can't even have a legitimate debate on it.
proportion does matter, contrary to your assertion. 8 billion (the estimated aggregate of the earmarks) sounds a lot bigger than "less than 2% of the total bill". i accept that some of that 2% may well be complete wastes of taxpayer funds, no doubt about it. but, i also know i don't want the federal gov't to come to a screeching halt, because of it. trust me, you really don't want that either.
-- however, in the absence of all the facts, you can't even have a legitimate debate on it. -- cpinva
You rang the bell with that swing of the mallet.
The current procedure ensures that the voting public...and even other members of congress...won't know the facts.
Screeching halt? Hardly. We've been under a continuing resolution for funding for a long time...without the passage of this funding bill.
Well wes, we know for sure that 41% can't count or add...
just like Bush hiding the costs of the "wars" to make the budget not look so high?
Satori (悟り ?) (悟 Chinesewù ; Korean 오) is a Japanese Buddhist term for enlightenment. The word literally means "understanding". Satori translates into a flash of sudden awareness.
Well. I thought that I would NEVER get to use that word Dad taught me. Katie and Chip...group hug. Come on over here!
無明 Chinese: wúmíng; むち Japanese: mumyō; Vietnamese: vô minh,Tibetan: ma rig-pa, 무명 Korean: (Hangeul) mu myeong, Thai: อวิชชา aa-wit-sha, Sanskrit: avidyā अविद्या
Translation: Ignorance A consistent quality manifested by members of the bought and paid for corporate media and right-wing trolls who have posted here under many identities.
Naraka नरक (Sanskrit). Hell in Buddhist lore, of which there are many.
My personal favorite:
Saṃghāta – the "crushing" Naraka. This Naraka is also upon a ground of hot iron, but is surrounded by huge masses of rock that smash together and crush the beings to a bloody jelly. When the rocks move apart again, life is restored to the being and the process starts again. Life in this Naraka is 10,368*10^10 years long.
Imagine your body being crushed into a gelatinous mass
and blended with the liquified putrecines and cadaverines of your soul mates Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Coulter. All that is then mixed with the aroma of Limbaugh's cigar smoke, Beck's cheap cologne, and luffa dust from one of O'Reilly's erotic encounters. A true liar's soup. Now that's a group hug. Only a matter of time before you stick your foot in your mouth and get banned again.
OBAMA: I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it's necessary for the ongoing functions of government.
Yea, because the freakin' government would have to shut down if he didn't sign the bill. This wasn't just an ordinary bill...
HOUSE MINORITY LEADER JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): It's easy to say, "Well, it was last year's business." This is a new Congress, and he's our new president. We had to send the bill to him, and he's the president and can sign it or veto it. So he missed a great opportunity.
Veto it and shut down the operations of the government, Mr. Boehner?
Of course this is what would happen, but they seem to forget that. You could get a continuing resolution to keep things running, but in a few months, we're right back where we started before.
I had an exchange with someone today who was arguing that in the budget there was a "shameful" (his words, not mine) 2 million dollars in the budget for pig waste smell and manure control. What a waste of money he says! Of course, it really isn't. Because hog lagoons are dangerous both smell wise, and manure wise. But to him, it was shameful, mostly because he didn't understand what happens with large scale hog waste.
And of course politicians are bringing this money home to their districts. Basically, that's what Congressmen and Congresswomen do.
Earmarks are not bad. They're made out to be "BAD", but most, are not. And of course 4-5 billion is a large amount of money, but as someone else pointed out, nobody is complaining about the other 98 percent, everyone is balking at the 2 percent that are earmarks. And they want to make it appear as if these were all put into the budget by democrats, which is of course, very and highly untrue.
In 2006 we threw those dipstick Republicans out of congress. It was more than about the war in Iraq, it was about their irresponsible spending also. Pelosi promised a lot of things when she became speaker of the house. There is youtube video out there of her promising fiscal accountability. I fear that Obama has no control over her at all.
Obama is looking very bad on his earmarks pledge by signing this omnibus bill. He could have taken a stand and used his popularity to get Pelosi and Reid under control. He appears to have taken the easy way out.
I'm starting to have doubts that this is the same guy I saw on the campaign trail. His words appear emptier and emptier with each speech. If we aren't careful we are going to loose control back to the Republicans in a few years.
give him time. he can't do everything at once.
Stop special pleading. He broke his word. I've noticed MMFA dropped this whole line about him only promising to "reform" the process, given the fact that he admittedly did not apply reform here. Not to mention the fact that he originally did say he would ban earmarks in January:
"We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review," Obama told reporters after a meeting with his economic advisers.
Admittedly that was about the stimulus bill. He changed his tone later about this reform thing. Either way, we haven't seen it in either bill, regardless of whatever percentage it is. Oh, and where is the putting things online for five days for everyone to see? How about the earmarks going online, too? McCain and Obama have both said they'd like to see people be accountable for what is in their earmarks so we can see if the earmarks really are good--as so many here insist they must be.
and if you were in his place you would get through all of your promises within two months?
Or you could phrase it this way: If you were in his place, would you be breaking promises already?
There are no earmarks in the stimulus bill.
You're aware that MMFA is a partisan group (that does not hide this fact), right? Their criticism of media is dead on.
It is also the case that Obama is at conflict with his previous statements. But why exactly are you demanding that MMFA take a "fair and balanced" approach? Why would they?
There are intelligent commentators out there (left and right) who critique the President. Nothing wrong with that, in fact it's of crucial importance. But why should a blatantly/openly partisan website report both sides of the story? If you're looking for that, you're in the wrong place.
Enter text here.My problem is that they are not "dead on" like you say. They are clearly trying to paint the picture that Obama has done nothing wrong at all, like any partisan group (by the way, enjoying that 501(c)(3) status?). From MMFA today: "Indeed, during his presidential campaign, Obama actually promised to reform the earmark process and cut wasteful spending, not eliminate earmarks altogether." I wouldn't call 8000 earmarks reform, but that's one guy's opinion.
Is it the amount of earmarks that is the problem? Was Obama's promise "I promise to only have under 8000 earmarks in a bill?" I don't think that it just matters that there's a lot of earmarks in it, I think it matters where those earmarks are going and for what. Most of the Republican Party's attempts to show wasteful spending have been reactionary, anti-intellectual distortions. How many times have you seen a Republican congressman say something like "whatever that is" or "why do we need this" when referring to an item in the bill. I'd argue that messrs. Coburn and McCain should probably research these items before they comment on them, if only to avoid embarrasing "fruit fly research" type gaffes. It's somewhat telling to me that politicians can openly admit their ignorance on a subject, and still feel justified in assessing the value of the subject. Daniel Inouye actually gave a solid defense of most of these "pork" projects, but I'm sure most people didn't see it. That's the difference between C-Span and everybody else.
Also, Media Matters is not a partisan organization, though they're political in nature. That's what happens when you think all of politics can be reduced to Democrats, Republicans and Independents. So don't take too much heed in SecondGate.
Poor Katie. Whenever the CBS News television director wants her to have a sparkle in her eyes, all he has to do is turn on the fill light that's aimed at the back of her head.
"Loaded"
"Filled"
"Stuffed"
Sounds like a night out on the town with Rush.
Sure!!! If you want my vote this upcoming election cycle! You are right on with that question. If Republicans want votes, they are going to have their phone, fax and email blown up until they do lean with their constituents.
Dow's third day up but don't expect to hear a lot about that!
FoxNoise reporters are saying the Dow is up today because Investors are happy to see Madoff being punished and going to jail. Too funny.
I also heard the DOW goes up every time an NFC team wins the Super Bowl. It's just gambling, folks, under the guise of "professionalism".
It really boggles the mind: "[Obama] campaigned against earmarks."
The election/campaign JUST happened. I mean, literally, just a few months ago. And already the media are confusing Obama with McCain.
Obama specifically stated that the entire system needs to be altered, not just earmarks. He also specifically stated that earmarks are just a tiny, tiny part of spending and thus not a priority.
This was on national debates. You'd think that our media elites would have at least watched those.
Earmark is just another GOP scare-word like socialism. Most of their supporters haven't clue-one what either word means. It's about raise fear, not awareness, in the masses.
Randy
History shows that, in an economic crisis, the last thing you want to do is listen to Republicans. In spite of all their whining, they are responsible for 40% of the earmarks--a proportion that is close to their actual numbers in the House and Senate.