It looks like the Senate will vote Thursday on an amendement that would ban earmarks for a year.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sen. John McCain has changed his campaign schedule so he could be in Washington for votes, including this one.

McCain has been a leading opponent of earmarks, as Kevin Diaz points out in his story about Rep. Betty McCollum’s effort to put Gov. Tim Pawlenty in an awkward position over the pork barrel spending.

In fact, the Republican senator has never asked for one, according to the National Taxpayers Union (NTU).

Not so for the two Democratic presidential candidates.

In this year’s spending bills, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton received $342 million, putting her in 10th place in the Senate, according to figures compiled by the Taxpayers for Common Sense. Sen. Barack Obama received $97 million, ranking him 74th.

You can find a wealth of information about earmarks — including who got what — at the Taxpayers for Common Sense website.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain, Presidential Democratic, Presidential Republican, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.