No more "pork-barrel projects", vows Obama

President Barack Obama yesterday said that he would sign an ''imperfect'' $410-billion bill to keep government operations running through 30 September, but the US Congress must stop jamming spending bills with lawmakers' pet projects.

He was referring to pet projects known as 'earmarks' that can vastly inflate the price tag of legislation, with sometimes wasteful spending. Some of the legislative items slipped - at times surreptitiously - into congressional bills address worthy concerns, but the US president said earmarks often "have been used as a vehicle for waste and fraud and abuse".

"Projects have been inserted at the 11th hour without review - and sometimes without merit - in order to satisfy the political or personal agendas of a given legislator, rather than the public interest," he said.

Obama added, "There are times where earmarks may be good on their own, but in the context of a tight budget, they might not be our highest priority."

His remarks at the White House came as he prepares to sign a 410-billion dollar spending bill which critics have said is laden with hundreds of earmarks - popularly derided as "pork-barrel projects".

"Let there be no doubt: this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability," Obama said.

"I am signing an imperfect ... bill because it's necessary for the ongoing functions of government, and we have a lot more work to do. We can't have Congress bogged down at this critical juncture in our economic recovery," he added.

Obama outlined a plan that would enable lawmakers to continue to earmark spending with a "legitimate and worthy public purpose" but would make the process more transparent and offer opportunities for public feedback before approval.

He also praised moves in the House of Representative to craft similar guidelines.

"Earmarks must have a legitimate and worthy public purpose. Earmarks that members do seek must be aired on those members' websites in advance, so the public and the press can examine them and judge their merits for themselves," he said.

"Each earmark must be open to scrutiny at public hearings, where members will have to justify their expense to the taxpayer," he added, vowing to end the sometimes "corrupting" practice of awarding earmarks benefiting private companies.

Meanwhile, House Democratic leaders announced two new measures to change the way earmarks are used. A 20-day review by the executive branch would be required, and they supported competitive bidding for earmarks for profit-making companies.

The president said that, at a time of national fiscal and economic duress, the country could ill afford to continue profligate spending. "It's important that we get this done to ensure we save billions of dollars that we so desperately need, to right the economy and address our fiscal crisis," he said.

Obama said that his administration will impose strict measures aimed at "reining in waste, abuse and inefficiency - saving the American taxpayers up to $40 billion each year in the process."

McCain unimpressed
His former presidentila rival, Republican Senator from Arizona John McCain, is not impressed. An outspoken critic of earmarks, McCain dismissed Obama's comments, calling them "his usual excellent rhetoric" but saying the message was "virtually meaningless" and "toothless."

"What he should have done was say he was going to veto this bill, that he wanted the $8 billion in earmarks removed and then he would sign it," McCain said.

Obama, who criticised the earmarked spending during his presidential campaign, did not publicly sign the $410 billion spending bill, which was approved by the Democratic-controlled Congress following a contentious debate.

The legislation, which will pay for the departments of transportation and agriculture among others, was approved despite Republican objections to the price tag.

"In just 50 days, Congress has voted to spend about $1.2 trillion," said Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate. "To put that in perspective, that's about $24 billion a day, or about $1 billion an hour - most of it borrowed. Government spending has spun out of control.''

Debate on the spending bill, at times full of bitter partisan rancour over provisions to roll back some parts of the US embargo on Cuba, herald even bigger fights over Obama's $3.55 trillion 2010 budget and overhauling healthcare, which Congress will turn to in the coming weeks.

Many Republicans fought against the bill because it raised government spending by eight per cent above fiscal 2008 levels. They said it added more money to programmes already funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus package approved last month.