This is going to be quick, but I just did what Senator McCain asked us to do last night early in the debate, which was go to the website of Citizens Against Government Waste to see the list of the "932 million dollars" that Senator Obama has requested. It's not there.
Oh, I'm sure it's on the website somewhere, but after getting a mention like that on national television, you would think that CAGW would have done the preparation to have that report prominent on their home page. Obama's name is not mentioned anywhere on the home page. You have to go to the "Pig Book" page, click on the database link (not the Alphabetical Senate List), and then select Obama's name from the list of Senators. It only shows one year at a time.
Time to dig in.
First some references.
Wikipedia: Citizens Against Government Waste
Sourcewatch: Citizens Against Government Waste
Charity Navigator: Citizens Against Government Waste
For 2008, according to the PDF Senate List, Senator Obama has requested 53 earmarks for $97.4 million dollars. Senator McCain has requested zero for zero dollars. So he has not requested one dime of federal help for Arizona.
The highest total is from Thad Cochran (R-MS) who asked for 245 earmarks for a total of 892.2 million dollars. Next, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) who asked for 150 projects for a total of $469.4 million. Then Richard Shelby (R-AL) who asked for 206 earmarks for a total of $464.5 million. The first Democrat on the list is Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who asked 161 earmarks for a total of $458.5 million. Obama is ranked number 70, near the bottom of the second page.
If you go to the database and enter Obama's name, the numbers change. Seems they don't know what reconcile means. For 2008, this shows 52 earmarks for a total of $89.8 million.
Their 2007 book is an Excel file that doesn't even allow a breakdown of which Senator made the request. Illinois had 22 earmarks listed, all for Defense, for a total of $79.6 million. They list some of the earmarks that they objected the most to, I guess, and Senator Obama's name is not on the page. Looks like they only considered projects in the realms of Defense and Homeland Security.
The 2006 book allows a website filter by state, but does not list whose name was put on the earmark, nor even the chamber that it came from. The total from Illinois: $350.5 Million. How many from Obama? From this list, who knows. (Also, the 2006 pages on the site seem to have some design problems. What's up with the content iframe having a height of 400,000? Yeah, I'm a geek.)
The 2005 page, with the same issues in page design, is the same format as 2006. The total from Illinois: $340.2 million.
To recap:
2008, Either $97.4 or $89.8 million from Obama, depending on reconcile
2007, $79.6 million only for Defense for the entire state of IL
2006, $350.5 million for the entire state of IL
2005, $340.2 million for the entire state of IL
These are the years that Barack Obama has been in the US Senate. Even if his name was on every single earmark for the state of IL for 2005 through 2007, this would only total up to $867.7 million dollars.
Either Senator McCain has access to more information than Citizens Against Government Waste, which is likely but that doesn't mean he reads any of it, or he is lying. Does anyone have a better resource than this joke of a website from CAGW?
We report, you decide.
[Update]: If you want to see the list of earmarks from Barack Obama in 2006 and 2007, the best place to go is his own website.