McCain Falsely Claims He Has ‘Never Asked For A Single Earmark Or Pork Barrel Project’ For His State

THINK PROGRESS

In tonight’s Fox News GOP presidential forum, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attempted to argue that if elected president, he will eliminate “wasteful spending.” As evidence, he claimed that he has never asked for an earmark for his state of Arizona:

And I’m proud to tell you, Chris, in 24 years as a member of Congress, I have never asked for nor received a single earmark or pork barrel project for my state and I guarantee you I’ll veto those bills. I’ll ask for the line item veto and I’ll veto them and I’ll make the authors of them famous.

Watch it:

McCain’s claim is false. In 2006, the senator teamed up with fellow Arizona senator Jon Kyl (R) to funnel $10 million toward the University of Arizona for an academic center named after the late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. Even Arizona lawmaker, Rep. Jeff Flake (R), said he was planning to “lean against the measure.” The National Taxpayers Union, another traditional McCain ally, questioned why the senator was making federal taxpayers foot the bill for the center.

In 2003, McCain also slipped $14.3 million into a defense appropriations bill to

create a buffer zone around Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. As Roll Call reported in 2003, this project violated McCain’s own anti-pork rhetoric:

The only problem is the project to acquire more land near the base was not requested by President Bush or fully authorized by the Senate Armed Services Committee - two of McCain’s criteria for identifying so-called ‘pork.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), a notorious porker, was overjoyed that McCain had joined his side. “One man’s pork is another man’s alternate white meat,” said Stevens. “If he asked for it, we put it in.”

Transcript:

WALLACE: But, Senator McCain, when you look at the fact that we survived 9/11, that we survived Hurricane Katrina, terrible blows to the economy and the economy kept growing, a lot of people say that’s because of the Bush tax cuts that you voted against.

MCCAIN: Well, I — and when we see what happened to spending and we have a bridge to nowhere of $233 million to an island with 50 people on it and we have former members of Congress who are now residing in federal prison because of the spending and corruption, my friend, we have to, if we’re going to restore the confidence of the American people and our Republican base first, we’re going to have to cut the spending, we’re going to have to eliminate the pork barrel and wasteful spending.

And I’m proud to tell you, Chris, in 24 years as a member of Congress, I have never asked for nor received a single earmark or pork barrel project for my state and I guarantee you I’ll veto those bills. I’ll ask for the line item veto and I’ll veto them and I’ll make the authors of them famous.

And we’ll get spending under control and then we’ll be able to have some physical sanity and restore trust and confidence on the part of the American people.