Drew Griffin
Special Investigations Unit Correspondent

We’re waiting to find out if the U.S. Senator’s earmark requests this year will jam the Senate Appropriations computer. The deadline for getting those pet project requests in is next Friday, April 25. And if the requests are anything like their counterparts in the House, the computer will experience a “slow down”, as house staffers called it, due to the load of pet projects being requested.

But we’ve learned there is going to be a significant taxpayer savings from at least two U.S. Senators. Which two? Guess?

Keep reading

Good afternoon, friends… How will the newest economic data play in the presidential race?

The unemployment rate shot up to 5.1% last month from 4.8%. That’s a big jump, and the highest rate since 2005. The economy lost 80,000 jobs–the most in a single month in five years. Plus, a NYT/CBS poll finds 81% say the country is on the wrong track.

Against that backdrop, Joe Johns is keeping them honest, revealing Congress’s most egregious earmarks — millions of your tax dollars spent on pet projects that many call a waste of money. As investigative journalist David Cay Johnston reports in his bestselling book, “Free Lunch,” $98,000 goes to develop a walking tour of Boydton, Va., a town of less than one square mile with a population of 474.  Is that how you’d like your hard earnings spent?

Also on 360 tonight, Clinton, Obama and McCain honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 40 years after he was shot and killed on a motel balcony. Later, Clinton and Obama address the North Dakota Democratic convention. Obama holds a Town Hall in Indiana. Bill Clinton works North Carolina.

Drew Griffin monitors a congressional hearing on a wave of airline safety issues, with four under investigation for allegedly violating safety directives, and accusations the FAA is too cozy with industry to protect travelers, plus cockpit windshields and landing gear failing. What’s going on here?
 

Continuing coverage of our Planet in Peril, Harris Whitbeck reports on the mysterious Dengue Fever ripping through Rio de Janeiro, with at least 54 deaths and nearly 30,000 illnesses already this year.  Could the fever threaten the U.S.?

Thank you for joining us at 10pm.

Comments to the 360° blog are moderated. What does that mean?

Hi all… I just want to let you know we’re still tracking the flood of Congressional requests to earmark and spend millions of your tax dollars for pet projects.
 

The silly spending season in Congress opened with a bang, or maybe the more appropriate word is a crash. So many requests for next year’s spending bills flooded the Appropriations Committee that the computer couldn’t handle it.

Committee staff says the computer “got very slow” when everyone sent in their requests at once. They insist it wasn’t a “crash,” just a big slow down. Um, are we parsing a little bit here?
 
In any case, the “slow down” prompted House leaders to move the deadline later to let members get in all their zillions of earmark requests for next year.

How many are there and what are they?  If you’ve been following this issue, you know Congress doesn’t trust you and me with that information yet. We’ve got our sources working it, though…so stand by.  

- Drew Griffin, 360° Correspondent/Special Investigations Unit

Morning Folks….Happy Monday!!!  A few more victories for Obama and Huckabee over the weekend on the Raw Politics front…NOW it is onto Maryland, Virginia and DC. Is the former Democratic front-runner now the underdog? AND if McCain is the assumed nominee, why is Huckabee still pulling in votes?  PLUS we are keeping the Bush budget honest, this morning…Sooo grab your coffee and take a look at today’s headlines…

Top Stories
Future of U.S. troops in Iraq…
A pause in the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq after the current reduction is completed in July “makes sense,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters in Baghdad Monday.

Death penalty for 9-11 roles…
Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for six GITMO detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, government officials who have been briefed on the charges said Sunday.

Iraq War planning buried…
The Army is accustomed to protecting classified information. But when it comes to the planning for the Iraq war, even an unclassified assessment can acquire the status of a state secret.

Get out of Iraq to boost economy…
The heck with Congress’ big stimulus bill. The way to get the country out of recession — and most people think we’re in one — is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.

New problems in the market…
A widening array of financial-market problems threatens to trigger a new phase in the global credit crunch, extending it beyond the risky mortgages that have cost banks and investors more than $100 billion in losses and helped push the U.S. economy toward recession.

Paintings stolen…
Works by Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh were stolen from an art foundation’s gallery in Zurich, Switzerland, according to Bernd Quellenberg, a spokesman for the Kunsthaus, a major art museum in Zurich.

Raw Politics
Obama wins Maine…
With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Obama was leading Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York 59 percent to 40 percent. At stake are 24 delegates to August’s Democratic national convention in Denver.

Huckabee wins again…
Just as Senator John McCain appeared poised to become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, he was reminded over the weekend that many Republican voters still have not climbed aboard his bandwagon.

Clinton staff shakeup…
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton has replaced her campaign manager with a longtime adviser, Maggie Williams, the campaign announced Sunday.

DC, Maryland blitz…
Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, their family members and surrogates swept through the Washington region yesterday, appearing in packed churches, schools and retirement communities in a blitz of activity two days before the high-stakes “Potomac Primary” in Virgina, Maryland and the District.

Keeping them Honest
Bush earmarks…
President Bush often denounces the propensity of Congress to earmark money for pet projects. But in his new budget, Mr. Bush has requested money for thousands of similar projects.

Clemens doping denials…
A lawyer for Brian McNamee believes the Justice Department will open a criminal investigation into Roger Clemens’ denials of doping.

What YOU will be talking about TODAY
And the Grammy goes too…
Winehouse, the troubled singer and songwriter who was let out of rehab to perform via satellite at the 50th annual Grammy Awards Sunday night, took home awards in five of the six categories in which she was nominated, including three of the big four general categories: record of the year, song of the year (both for “Rehab”) and best new artist.

(CNN) — Most members of Congress call them earmarks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to get them called “legislatively directed spending.” But for almost every American taxpayer I’ve run into over the last year, it’s called “pork” and it’s not very tasty.

CNN’s Drew Griffin investigates congressional spending for Anderson Cooper 360°.

Earmarks are those nearly secret pet projects that are added onto the government’s spending bills year after year. On Monday night, President Bush will announce what are being called “unprecedented changes” in the way lawmakers earmark money for special projects that benefit their districts or campaign contributors.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, “The president will say that if these spending items are worthy, Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote.”

Over the last year, I have traveled from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to San Francisco, California, to Alaska uncovering the secret pet projects of Congress.

See some of the projects earmarked for 2008 in this Behind-the-Scenes report.

- Drew Griffin, 360° Correspondent