Obama Releases Earmarks, Says Clinton Should Too
As Hillary Clinton continues to push the idea that Barack Obama is not ready to be president, the Obama campaign seems intent on pushing the message that Clinton is too secretive to be president.
After recently calling on Clinton to release her tax returns, the Obama campaign today released the Illinois Senator's earmark requests in an effort to put more pressure on Clinton.
Her campaign didn't seem ready to respond. At the end of the Clinton campaign's conference call today, Howard Wolfson was asked if Clinton was willing to desist from using earmarks for the rest of the year. "I don’t know the answer," he said, before referring the reporter to Clinton's Senate office.
Here is the memo calling for Clinton to release her earmark requests:
Obama Releases His Earmark Requests; Calls on Clinton to do the Same
Chicago, IL – Senator Barack Obama’s campaign today released his earmark requests for 2005 and 2006 and called on Senator Hillary Clinton to do the same. Last year, Obama’s Senate office released his 2007 earmark requests.
The ’05 and ’06 requests can be seen by clicking [link]. The ’07 requests are available on the official Senate website. To date, Senator Clinton has refused repeated requests to disclose her earmark requests.
“Bringing real change requires changing the way we do business in Washington,” said Obama for America Communications Director Robert Gibbs. “If Senator Clinton will not agree to join Senator Obama in releasing her earmark requests, voters should ask why she doesn’t believe they have the right to know she wants to spend their tax dollars.”
Obama believes that there has been too little transparency in Washington, and he has been a leader in reforming the earmark process so that every American can know how the government spends their tax dollars. Barack Obama teamed up with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) to pass a law that lifted the veil of secrecy in Washington by creating a Google-like search engine that allows ordinary Americans to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks and loans online. The database – known as “Google for Government” – was launched by the Office of Management and Budget in early December and is available at www.USAspending.gov. As president, Obama will give voters the tools they need to track spending so we can stop letting the special interests set the agenda in Washington.
CLINTON HAS REFUSED TO RELEASE HER EARMARKS, VOTED AGAINST DISCLOSURE Clinton Has Refused To Respond At All To Requests By The Media To Identify Her Earmarks. "When it comes to earmarks, an issue that voters responded to more than any other in the last election except for Iraq, her record is about as bad as it gets. If Dennis Hastert was the king of earmarks, Hillary Clinton was his queen. Republicans had their ‘bridge to nowhere.' Hillary has her knitting mill. Among the presidential candidates, many Republicans currently holding office have responded to media requests to make public all their earmarks, including Representatives Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo. (Senator John McCain notably claims to not submit any such requests). They presumably have done so because they have nothing to hide. On the Democratic side, however, the major candidates have been much less forthright. The Clinton campaign refused to respond at all to requests that she identify her earmarks." [Kevin Hassett, Bloomberg, 10/8/07]
Clinton Voted Against Requiring Public Disclosure Of Earmark Sponsors And Recipients. In 2007, Clinton voted against requiring public disclosure of earmark sponsors and earmark recipients, and to change the definition of an earmark to include both federal and non-federal projects. [Vote #5, Motion rejected, 46-51 D 38-9 R 7-41 I 1-1, S. Amdt. 11, 1/11/07; New York Times, 1/13/07]
Clinton Voted Against Earmark Transparency in Committee. In an Armed Services Committee vote, Clinton voted against providing for the increased transparency of earmarks for additional funding. [Armed Services Committee Vote on Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2008, Motion 6, Passed 15-10]
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HILLARY --- WE WANT TO SEE YOUR TAX RETURNS FOR "2006."
DON'T BE SO SECRETIVE --- IT SEEMS VERY DECEPTIVE.
IF HILLARY HAS NOTHING TO HIDE ---WHY SCREW WITH THE VOTERS?
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Hillary the word for today is
transparency.
t-r-a-n-s-p-a-r-e-n-c-y.
transparency.
Release your earmarks and tax returns.
She'll never release 'em. She rich, legit sources and probably devious, but she's rich. Ask the Clinton's how they got the loan for their New York home in 2001.
We deserve to be treated with respect just like our next president[Barack Obama] has gained assurance from the voters.
It is demeaning to see that Hillary Clinton has consistently withheld her surposedly public documents from day one.
Is this the kind of presidency she claims to potray and impliment from day one? This creates doughtful minds among the voters if not all.I think she should do herself a favor
by doing the required.
Well, one senator releasing earmarks, 99 to go. Then don't forget the 435 turds in the House.
Fess up Hillary. We're looking for honesty, not the same old politics!
Yeah, but the other "Turds" are not seeking the democratic nomination for president. Isn't wonderful to see who is actually seeking meaningful change and who are resisting?
Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has released a list of $740 million in earmark requests he made in the past three years, and it includes $1 million for the hospital where his wife Michelle is a vice president.
The request for $1 million for the University of Chicago Medical Center was to help pay for construction of a new pavilion.
“I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that Michelle Obama was not part of our lobbying over the request, not in any way,” Kelly Sullivan, another vice president at the medical center, told the New York Times.
In any case, the 2006 request for the hospital was not approved by the Senate, as was about $7 out of every $10 the Illinois senator asked for in earmarks.
Bud he did manage to secure $1.3 million for a high-explosive technology program for the Army’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The program was overseen by General Dynamics, and one of Obama’s top supporters, James Crown — a member of Obama’s national finance committee — serves on the board of General Dynamics.
Obama also secured a $750,000 earmark for renovation of a space center named for Crown’s grandfather, Henry Crown, at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
And Obama secured several million dollars for a project at Chicago State University. Illinois State Senate President Emil Jones Jr., a close personal friend of Obama and one of his benefactors, has been a strong supporter of Chicago State, according to the Times.
Other earmarks sought and secured by Obama include more than $10 million for a military arsenal in Rock Island, several million dollars for research on soybean disease and livestock genes, and $100,000 for after-school programs at the Chicago Jesuit Academy.
Michelle Obama is on leave from her job while her husband campaigns for president, but after Barack was elected to congress, she received a big raise.
USA Today reports that officials at the University of Chicago Hospitals told the Chicago Tribune that Michelle is "worth her weight in gold."
"She's terrific," added Michael Riordan, who was president of the hospital in March 2005, when Michelle Obama was promoted to vice president for external affairs and had her annual salary increased from $121,910 to $316,962.
Hospitals spokesman John Easton told the Tribune that Michelle Obama's salary is in line with those of the 16 other vice presidents at the not-for-profit medical center.
Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has released a list of $740 million in earmark requests he made in the past three years, and it includes $1 million for the hospital where his wife Michelle is a vice president.
The request for $1 million for the University of Chicago Medical Center was to help pay for construction of a new pavilion.
“I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that Michelle Obama was not part of our lobbying over the request, not in any way,” Kelly Sullivan, another vice president at the medical center, told the New York Times.
In any case, the 2006 request for the hospital was not approved by the Senate, as was about $7 out of every $10 the Illinois senator asked for in earmarks.
Bud he did manage to secure $1.3 million for a high-explosive technology program for the Army’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The program was overseen by General Dynamics, and one of Obama’s top supporters, James Crown — a member of Obama’s national finance committee — serves on the board of General Dynamics.
Obama also secured a $750,000 earmark for renovation of a space center named for Crown’s grandfather, Henry Crown, at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
And Obama secured several million dollars for a project at Chicago State University. Illinois State Senate President Emil Jones Jr., a close personal friend of Obama and one of his benefactors, has been a strong supporter of Chicago State, according to the Times.
Other earmarks sought and secured by Obama include more than $10 million for a military arsenal in Rock Island, several million dollars for research on soybean disease and livestock genes, and $100,000 for after-school programs at the Chicago Jesuit Academy.
Michelle Obama is on leave from her job while her husband campaigns for president, but after Barack was elected to congress, she received a big raise.
USA Today reports that officials at the University of Chicago Hospitals told the Chicago Tribune that Michelle is "worth her weight in gold."
"She's terrific," added Michael Riordan, who was president of the hospital in March 2005, when Michelle Obama was promoted to vice president for external affairs and had her annual salary increased from $121,910 to $316,962.
Hospitals spokesman John Easton told the Tribune that Michelle Obama's salary is in line with those of the 16 other vice presidents at the not-for-profit medical center.
To Posters:
FYI
Copying and pasting loooong articles on the Observer is a good way to have readers' eyes glaze over and move on to the next poster whom posts succinct rejoinders to the main article.
When you look at Senator Obama,as a
Jesus Loving ( do not lie now Jesus is
looking at you!),American what do you see?
A Blackman running for President.? A
White Man running for President? A Black
Man/White man running for President ?
An American Citizen running for
President ?
If you are the American manifested by the United States Constitution then you must agree that seeing Senator Obama in any other way but an AMERICAN CITIZEN RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT then you do America and its Constitution and Senator Obama's Mother a grave injustice and the very notion that you are an AMERICAN must be called in to serious question!
Here is why:
(1) Senator Obama is the
wonderful child of A Black Kenyan father
and a White American mother.
He was abandoned by his father at age
two and raised by His White American mother.She taught
Senator Obama all the great principles which defines
Him as a great American. She did not teach Him to be
black or to be White but to be an decent and up right
Human being and thus a Great and exemplary American.
Senator Obama,no one can ever deny,is the living hard
and courageous work of a great American Lady and she
is White and has been a single mother!
As we look at Senator Obama through the eyes of truth
and the light of His Mother's work with him and for him
we are forced to see quite a few things: (1) The sheer
force of What a Woman can do by herself (2) A tribute
to every single mother who has had to struggle to
raise her children alone with no help from the father.
(3) The viciousness of the old "Washington double talk
and double standards and the old Karl Rove and his
followers and imitators and "Wannabees Karl Rove" type
of Politics as they use their surrogates to substitute
race for issues.(4) How a woman who is supposed to be a
Champion of the causes of women can by what she and
her surrogates and the Karl roves of these United
States have done and have not done marginalizes and
made of little or no importance at the great work of
a Woman who safely carried senator Obama for nine
months,the safely brought him into this world and fed
and nurtured Senator Obama and then when abandoned clung
fast to her son and raised him to be the Senator Obama
we all are so proud of....saying he is simply a black
man running for President ignores and marginalizes all
the work and the pain and tears and the efforts of
this great American mother who simply happens to be
white! It is like taking away from her every thing she
has done and stood for!
it is strange that the Press,the Clinton's,The
Geraldine Ferraro's and all those who pretends to be
for women's right are the very ones who are guilty
of this ....if I am wrong somebody prove me wrong!
I,like Senator Obama,understands by personal
experience what it is like to be abandoned by a
father....and so are quite a lot of Americans today.
As I close I do hope some of my American sisters and
brothers,be they Democrat or Republican or Independent,
shall see Senator Obama in the true light
which is ,An American Democrat Running for President
of the United States.
As we see Senator Obama in the light of Truth His
mother shall be honored as the great American Mother she is!