Foreign Policy Debate - Solving Financial Crisis: Are the...

SEN. MCCAIN: Well, the first thing we have to do is get spending

under control in Washington. It's completely out of control. It's

gone -- we have now presided over the largest increase in the size of

government since the Great Society. We Republicans came to power to

change government and government changed us.

And the -- the worst symptom of this disease is what my friend

Tom Coburn calls "earmarking as a gateway drug," because it's a

gateway. It's a gateway to out-of-control spending and corruption.

And we have former members of Congress now residing in federal prison

because of the evils of this earmarking and pork-barrel spending.

You know, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in

Montana. I don't know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal

issue, but the fact is that it was $3 million of our taxpayers' money

and it has got to be brought under control. As president of the

United States, I want to assure you, I've got a pen -- this one's kind

of old -- I've got a pen and I'm going to veto every single spending

bill that comes across my desk. I will make them famous. You will

know their names.

Now, Senator Obama, you wanted to know one of the differences.

He has asked for $932 million of earmark pork-barrel spending, nearly

a million dollars for every day that he's been in the United States

Senate.

I suggest that people go up on the website of -- of Citizens Against

Government Waste, and they'll look at those projects.

That kind of thing is not the way to rein in runaway spending in

Washington, D.C. That's one of the fundamental differences that

Sena