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(AP) - Acknowledging it's an "imperfect" bill,
President Barack Obama said he will accept a $410 billion spending
package but insisted it must signal an "end to the old way of
doing business."

      The massive measure funding federal agencies through the fall
contains nearly 8,000 pet projects, known as "earmarks" and
denounced by critics as pork.

      Obama defended earmarks when they're "done right," allowing
lawmakers to direct money to worthy projects in their districts -
but added they've been abused, and he'll work with Congress to curb
them.

      "I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it's necessary
for the ongoing functions of government," Obama declared. "But I
also view this as a departure point for more far-reaching change."


      In a sign of his discomfort with the bill, Obama did not sign it
in public. And he declined to answer a shouted reporters' question
about why.


      Running for president, Obama denounced the pet projects as
wasteful and open to abuse - and vowed to rein them in.


      Explaining his decision, Obama said that future earmarks must
have a "legitimate and worthy public purpose," and the any
earmark for a private company should be subject to competitive
bidding rules. Plus he said he'll "work with Congress" to
eliminate any the administration objects to.


      But he acknowledged that earmarks have bred "cynicism", and he
declared, "This piece of legislation must mark an end to the old
way of doing business."


      White House officials in recent weeks have dismissed criticism
of the earmarks in the bill, saying the legislation was a remnant
of last year and that the president planned to turn his attention
to future spending instead of looking backward.


      White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama wouldn't be the
first president to sign legislation that he viewed as less than
ideal. Asked whether Obama had second thoughts about signing the
bill, Gibbs' reply was curt: "No."


      Obama's modest set of reforms builds upon changes initiated by
Republicans in 2006 and strengthened by Democrats two years ago.
Most importantly, every earmark and its sponsor must be made
public.


      In new steps - outlined in concert with House Democratic leaders
Wednesday morning - the House Appropriations Committee will submit
every earmark to the appropriate executive branch agency for a
review. And any earmark designed to go to for-profit companies
would have to be awarded through a competitive bidding process.


      But perhaps the most tangible change may be Obama's promise to
resurrect the long-defunct process by which the president proposes
to cut spending from bills that he has signed into law.


      Under this so-called rescissions process, the White House sends
Congress a roster of cuts for its consideration. Congress is free
to ignore the cuts, but both Obama and senior members like
Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., say they want
to use it to clean out bad earmarks that make it through the
process.


      But Obama declined to endorse a stronger process advocated by
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and others, that would have required
Congress to vote on a presidential recission earmark package.
Senior Democrats dislike the idea even though many of them backed
it in the early-to-mid 1990s.


      During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to force
Congress to curb its pork-barrel-spending ways. 


Yet the bill sent
from the Democratic-controlled Congress to the White House on
Tuesday contained 7,991 earmarks totaling $5.5 billion, according
to calculations by the Republican staff of the House Appropriations
Committee.


      The 1,132-page bill has an extraordinary reach, wrapping
together nine spending bills to fund the annual operating budgets
of every Cabinet department except Defense, Homeland Security and
Veterans Affairs. 


Among the many earmarks are $485,000 for a
boarding school for at-risk native students in western Alaska and
$1.2 million for Helen Keller International so the nonprofit can
provide eyeglasses to students with poor vision.


      Most of the government has been running on a stopgap funding
bill set to expire at midnight Wednesday. 


Refusing to sign the
newly completed spending bill would force Congress to pass another
bill to keep the lights on come Thursday or else shut down the
massive federal government. That is an unlikely possibility for a
president who has spent just seven weeks in office.


      The $410 billion bill includes significant increases in food aid
for the poor, energy research and other programs. It was supposed
to have been completed last fall, but Democrats opted against
election-year battles with Republicans and former President George
W. Bush.

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Acknowledging it's an "imperfect" bill,
President Barack Obama said he will accept a $410 billion spending package but insisted it must signal an "end to the old way of doing business."

Obama to sign spending bill, push for new earmark rules

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