The continuing kerfuffle over earmarks

As the $410 billion Omnibus spending bill moves through Congress, Republicans are once again complaining that a Democratic bill is loaded with earmarks.

Last week, we examined John McCain’s claim that it has

more than 9,000 earmarks,

so today we’re focusing on a widely cited Democratic number that the earmarks total just $3.8 billlion. We found that number doesn’t include things that can reasonably be called earmarks, so

we rated the Democrats’ statement False

.

We also found lots of confusion about what exactly President Obama promised during the campaign. Some in the media have incorrectly said that Obama promised to eliminate earmarks (a misinterpretations we’ve also heard from several of our readers), but we found

John Boehner was on the money

with his claim that Obama “campaigned against this type of legislation.”

We expect we haven’t heard the last about earmarks this week.