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Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC News Political Reporter



More on Obama's earmarks

Posted: Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:59 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:

From NBC's Carly Zakin
We've counted up the earmark requests on Obama's Web site, and they add up to 113 requests totaling $494,266,475.

***Update*** Well, math has never actually been our strong suit -- especially when adding with a computer calculator. And after hearing back from Obama's Senate office (and crunching our numbers again) we were a bit off. Obama's total earmark requests (when teamed up with other senators) is $399,766,475. The price tag for his solo earmark requests is $321,766,475.

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Comments

It's good to see someone "putting there money where there mouth is" when it comes to transparency and openness of government.
I think it is a good idea. It would be refreshing if ALL of our Congressmen and women would follow Obama's lead.
At least now we know what it will cost instead of the dreamed up figures that this administration has provided on the cost of war.
No kidding, Ravine.  Remember when they told us this little war of theirs would pay for itself with Iraqi oil money?  Now it's up to 400 billion or so, but that's not real money, it's just supplemental, off the books money.  Imperialism and world domination sure is expensive these days.
Earmarks are way out of control in dollars and have many ethical problems.  They should be eliminated.
I think its great. Maybe we are on our way to restoring the trust of American people in our government.  Then, maybe we can get the 50% of the American people who don't even vote, because they are so distrustful of government, to begin to participate.
this is called leadership.  Obama is showing the way in reform and transparency.  
Now, we all know how Hillary will never disclose hers.
where can we find the actual list online?
Hillary will not disclose these earmarks for a one-word reason.Dubai.While everyone that counts themselves critics of the Bush administration[and these are admittedly legion],they nevertheless cross a line into hypocrisy by tying Bush to the ''Saudis''who has not made a dime off of the Kingdom[and his tax records released courtesy of the Federal Election Commission and the IRS prove it[www.irs.gov and www.fec.gov],the Clintons have made perhaps as much as ten million dollars from the Arab Emirates.[hence,no release of any records showing the tie to these Arab benefactors who are viruantly anti-Semitic,anti-gay,anti-Christian and anti-feminist].Not the kind of thing you want on a ''leadership''resume.One-time Clintonista Dick Morris has released a curiously unchalleneged-by-the-Clintons tome called ''Outrage''in which he details the Dubai dough now flowing into Clinton coffers.The trick is to track earmarks for American-registered companies that have their homeports in the Emirates.Not if,but when this occurs,Nacht Hillary.[The non-partisan Center For Responsive Politics at www.opensecrets.org is now on the case].
The sooner we make these earmarks transparent, the sooner the American people will realize that we need to eliminate them. Reminder- these projects cost us!


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