Last Year I Culd Not Spel Fiskal Konservativ. Now I Are One.

Hoyer: Congress, not Obama, to decide on earmarks - CNN.com

Earmarks... Pet projects tacked onto non-related bills are also known as "pork". Taxpayer dollars not necessary to run the country, but popular with the voters back home, especially since the spending is done with OPM (other people's money.)

President Obama campaigned for change, for no "politics as usual", for not "sending the same old people" to Washington, for cutting spending.

Yet those same old people that he's used to populate his administration were not only feeding at the trough last year, they were shoveling it in as fast as they could. Now those people call it "last year's business" and call for limited pork from now on.

Guess they are now fiscal conservatives since they don't have to appease the voters back home for re-election.

From the article:

The majority leader dismissed a reporter's question on whether the $410 billion spending bill for the rest of this year is becoming an "embarrassment" to Obama, and reiterated Obama's argument that the package is "last year's business."

Hoyer also said that even though Obama, then a senator, did not request any earmarks in last year's spending bill, he did request projects for Illinois in prior years he served in the Senate.

Cutting "wasteful" government spending was a pledge Obama made on the campaign trail and has repeated as president.

Despite Obama's promise, the administration says it inherited the spending and he will sign it.

Several members of Obama's administration served in Congress and have earmarks listed on the bill.

Vice President Joe Biden requested $750,000 for a University of Delaware program during his time as a senator from that state. Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who was a Democratic congressman from Illinois, requested $900,000 for a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois.

An Emanuel aide told CNN on Monday the request was submitted more than a year ago and is leftover business.

(Via CNN.)