Unsurprisingly, President Obama recently realized early legislative success in pursuit of his massive government-heavy healthcare program.

Sen. Harry Reid pushed the initial legislation to the Senate, giving our representatives very little time to review the bill in advance of the first vote opening further debate.

In attempting to clear this initial procedural hurdle, Reid and the Obama administration could not find the support of a single Republican senator and also were having difficulty in rounding up even the necessary 60 votes, all of which would have to be Democrats, to advance the legislation.

Now, most taxpayers would hope that, in pursuit of the 60 votes, the administration and Senate Democrats would use the merits of the legislation as the basis for their swaying of members of their own party. Sadly, that simply is not the case.

Rather, bribes in the form of earmarks ended up being the carrot that lured in the final votes on a critical piece of legislation that may impact the future of our nation’s healthcare. . . and our nation’s debt.

Take, for example, Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, one of the last Senate holdouts who joined other Democrats only hours before the controversial vote. What drew Landrieu to vote in support of the legislation? Was it her comfort with the cost, or perhaps her satisfaction that the concerns of her constituents had been satisfied?

Sadly, the answer lies with a seemingly minor provision added to the healthcare legislation, which takes two pages to write up a description of which states would qualify for an influx of 100 million additional dollars in federal Medicaid subsidies, using phrases such as “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

Those two pages make it so that the only state that could qualify is Louisiana. Landrieu says the funds will total to $300 million ($100 million in disaster relief and $200 in Medicaid).

But if you thought the esteemed senator would feel the least bit ashamed of how her decision was made, think again. In her floor speech, after accusations that her vote was bought, Landrieu said: “I will correct something. It’s not $100 million, it’s $300 million, and I’m proud of it and will keep fighting for it.”

But the waste and hidden vote purchases are not confined to Landrieu and the Democrats’ 21st-century Louisiana Purchase. A Boston Globe story in July uncovered a provision in both the Senate and House versions of the bill that would designate large sums of money (up to $1.6 billion each year in the House version) to improve the nation’s “health infrastructure.” The proposal will cover community grants for things such as bike paths, jungle gyms, sidewalks, lighting, farmers markets, etc., as a preventive health measure.

Certainly preventive healthcare is a worthy topic for discussion, but is a “reform” of our healthcare system really the appropriate place to spend billions on children’s playgrounds?

Earmarks and “pork” are not new in Washington politics. However, earmarks and pork required to get Democrats to support a Democratic-authored healthcare reform bill should tell us all we need to know: Even internally, many Democrats recognize that Americans do not support their effort to further empower the federal government and drive up the national debt all in the name of faux “reform.”

The time has come for Americans of every political persuasion to stand up and demand that our representatives seriously debate the ramifications of this healthcare legislation instead of trying to find ways to be compensated for their votes. Perhaps the clearest way to send that message is to send Landrieu packing. After all, in the actual Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson managed to purchase half the county for 20 times less than it took for Landrieu to give it all away!

The earmarks in the spending bill and Rush Limbaugh got most of the love on Wednesday’s late night monologues. Well at least it was a kinda-sorta equal offender night, anyways.

I know that at one time or another, I have said that earmarks serve no real purpose and are a waste of taxpayer dollars - although to be fair, some of the earmarks actually, believe it or not, have some merit.  But by and large, they’re pet projects.  And you know what?  The politicians – Democrats and Republicans alike – aren’t exactly mindful of that fact.  I have the Top 20 “earmarkers” aka lawmakers who partook at the federal trough:

1) Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. — $122,804,900 

2) Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. — $114,484,250 

3) Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo. — $85,691,491 

4) Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. — $76,899,425 

5) Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. — $75,908,475 

6) Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska — $74,000,750 

7) Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa — $66,860,000 

8 ) Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. — $53,133,500 

9) Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — $51,186,000 

10) Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii — $46,380,205 

11) Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. — $39,228,250 

12) Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. — $36,547,100 

13) Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt. — $36,161,125 

14) Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. — $35,577,250 

15) Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. — $27,169,750 

16) Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. — $26,628,613 

17) Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. — $25,320,000 

18) Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. — $23,832,000 

19) Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — $21,952,250 

20) Former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. — $19,588,625

Now, if you want the full report, just click here.  It isn’t pretty folks – and it is yet another reason to demand earmark reform.

I think it is safe to say that just about every metroplitan city in the country has some pet projects that will be satisifed with the omnibus spending bill – that includes the city I live very close to – Sacramento, California.  I lucked upon the list of projects that are scheduled to benefit from the omnibus spending bill. 

Keep in mind that this list isn’t intended to show you something that’s on a local level; if anything, it is intended to give you an idea just how out of hand this earmark process has become.  Now for the “fat-rendering”:

• South Sacramento Light Rail Extension ($7 million)
• Intermodal Terminal Facility and Track Railroad Relocation ($950,000)
• California State DOJ Vision 2015 – Criminal Justice Information Sharing Project ($500,000)
• SEARCH, National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics ($500,000)
• California Health and Human Services Agency, Sacramento, CA for the cord blood collection program ($476,000)
• California State Department of Justice Merced County California Methamptietamine Strategy ($300,000)
• Cosumnes River College, Sacramento, CA for the GreenForce center, including outreach and recruitment of students for clean energy training ($238,000)
• Legal Services of Northern California, Inc., Sacramento, CA, to provide free legal consultation for older Californians ($238,000)
• Boys and Girls Club of Greater Sacramento, CA for an internet safety program for teenagers, which may include equipment ($214,000)
• California State Department of Justice California Gang Suppression Enforcement Teams ($200,000)
• Sacramento Police Department Sacramento Youth Gang Intervention/Prevention Program ($200,000)
• Roberts Family Development Center, Sacramento, CA for programs to reduce the risk of chronic diseases, particularly cancer, heart disease, and obesity ($190,000)
• Sacramento County Sheriff In-Car Camera and Information Integration Project ($150,000)
• CA State Dept of Justice, Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement Sacramento County Methamphetamine Enforcement ($150,000)

That’s just the local earmarks, folks.  If you want the entire national list of earmarks, click here.  The national list is courtesy of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Right now it would take an act of God for earmarks to bel eliminated from the current spending bill; but nonetheless, this question begs to be asked: If all of the earmarks were removed from the spedning bill, how much would we save? Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, has the answers.

The Thursday morning talk show circuit was busy as usual and there wasn’t a lack of opinions from either side of the aisle. A little Rick Santelli, a Bobby Jindal diss, an earmark count and more. This is good, folks.

Looks like we’re going to lose a couple of the senators whose claim to fame is getting ridiculous amounts of money for their home states – in other words, earmarks.  And the two senators in question have been around long enough to where they may well have invented the “earmark”.  Who are these 2 senators, you ask?  How do the names Ted Stevens and Robert Byrd grab ya? 

The pair have been the face of the committee that controls over $1 trillion a year in spending on everything from A to Z; combined, they have 90 years of service between them.  But just because Stevens and Byrd are leaving doesn’t mean that earmarks are leaving with them – not by a long shot.  Ironically, another member of the same committee who is retiring, Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico, says that “earmarks won’t be abandoned” and “They’re needed.”

For now, it looks like Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii will replace Byrd and either Senator Lisa Murkowski or Mark Begich – who recently defeated Stevens in the Alaska senatorial race – will replace Stevens.  The only hope that’s out there as far as the reductions in earmarks is oddly enough…president-elect Barack Obama.  Obama made a campaign promise that, according to his campaign website said that a “plan for restoring fiscal discipline” that partially says he will slash earmarks “to no greater than 1994 levels and all spending decisions are open to the public.”

Quite honestly, I do not see Obama keeping that promise if his other campaign promises are weighed equally.  What one can hope for right now is that the Republicans currently in the committee bring some financial common sense to the earmark situation; it is also not lost upon me that the Democrats view the earmarks are some source of “entitlement” and that the amount of earmarks they get for their home states help them prove to their constituents the type of senator that they are.