PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Reid to Obama: Let Us Keep Earmarks!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants the White House to tread lightly on earmarks, saying that any push by the Obama administration to clamp down on pet projects would be met with strong opposition from congressional leaders.

“We cannot let spending be done by a bunch of nameless, faceless bureaucrats,” Reid said, arguing that lawmakers are much more in tune with federal money needs for their states than agencies in Washington.

Reid’s comments came a day after President Barack Obama called for slicing the skyrocketing national debt.

Earmarking money has been the subject of increased scrutiny after the practice became the subject of high-profile corruption scandals on Capitol Hill in recent years, and led to a sweeping ethics reform law in 2007. . . . In the omnibus spending bill working its way through Congress, there are 8,570 earmarks worth $7.7 billion, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

This will be a good test of whether Obama will walk the walk, or just talk the talk.