However, the pledge by world leaders to earmark $1.1 trillion toward resolving the crisis is misleading.
And the president's pledge to reduce earmarks echoed a call he made last year to reduce wasteful spending by 50%.
I sort of think that the constant pledge to ban earmarks is the thing that's become a symbol of the broken system.
He asks Boehner to pledge to eliminate earmarks, and he won't: he'll only say, "it will not be business as usual" and "I have never taken an earmark".
In a bigger shift from his campaign pledge to end earmarks, he tells me that they are a bad "symbol" of easy spending but that he will fight for Kentucky's share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it's doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night.
After Representative John Boehner pledged to stop earmarking spending bills — a position received warmly by the White House — Republican senators voted Tuesday to join the effort.
But the results have been inconsistent, with some House Republicans pledging earlier this year to swear off all earmarks temporarily, House Democrats pledging to ban earmarks only to commercial businesses, and the Senate taking no action at all.
BECAUSE MY TEMPLES ARE THRUMMING!" And now, the same senators that pledged to kick earmarks entirely, are just wondering if it would be okay if they just earmarked socially, in the evenings or something.
The spending bill includes hundreds of lawmaker-directed spending items known as earmarks — perhaps the last chance for Congress to approve them given internal Republican pledges to ban earmarks for the next two years.
Since the president's only choice with earmarked bills is to sign them or veto them, was he pledging to veto every earmarked bill?
Mr. McCain is set to announce on Monday morning that 300 economists are endorsing his economic proposals, which include tax cuts, expanded trade and a pledge to veto bills with earmarks.
