Obamanomics

"We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review."
- Barack Obama

Jamie Dupree, Obama Says No to Earmarks, January 7, 2009
http://wsbradio.com/blogs/jamie_dupree/2009/01/obama-says-no-stimulus-earmark.html

1 month later...

"Ban all earmarks?" The 2009 spending bill contains 9000 of them...

The Top Ten Earmarks in the Economic "Stimulus" Bill:

10. $1.7 million "for a honey bee factory" in Weslaco, TX.
9. $475,000 to build a parking garage in Provo City, Utah.
8. $200,000 for a tattoo removal violence outreach program that could help gang members or others shed visible signs of their past.

7. $30 million to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse in the San Francisco Bay.
6. $1 million for mormon cricket control in Utah.
5. $650,000 for beaver management in North Carolina and Mississippi.
4. $2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in New York.
3. $332,000 for the design and construction of a school sidewalk in Franklin, Texas.
2. $2 million “for the promotion of astronomy” in Hawaii.
1. $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa.

Barack Obama on the campaign trail:

"We need earmark reform. When I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely." Presidential Debate, Oxford Mississippi, September 2009

Barack Obama 5 months later as President:

"What do you think a stimulus is? It's spending - That's the whole point.... No seriously, that's the point." House Democratic Issues Conference in Williamsburg, Va, February 5, 2009