Had It "Up To Here"

McCaskill vs. McConnell

Sen. Claire McCaskill plans to take Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to task this week over his funding requests for $75 million dollars in earmarks in the omnibus spending bill, The Hill reports.

According to the group Taxpayers for Common Sense, McConnell has received 53 of the earmarks he requested, including money for bike trails and animal production research in Kentucky.

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"I’m going to go to the floor, where I’m going to highlight all the Republican earmarks," McCaskill warned Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) last week, interrupting his hallway interview with a reporter. "I’m kind of up to here with this," McCaskill is quoted as saying, showing with her hand that Republican rhetoric had piled well past her chin.

"You’re not a hypocrite," McCaskill said to Coburn, "but these guys, these appropriators — Mitch McConnell talking about all the pork in the stimulus bill and then he turns around and sticks all the stuff into this [omnibus] bill."

McCaskill is just one of two Senate Democrats who doesn't request earmarks.