McCain campaign changes its ‘definition’ of earmarks.

As ThinkProgress has previously noted, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign promise to “veto every bill that has a pork-barrel project on it” if elected president would result in $65 billion of cuts to programs, including U.S. funding assistance to Israel and funding for military housing. Now, McCain’s top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, says that McCain is changing the definition of earmarks. Under the new definition, “there are between $16 billion and $18 billion” of earmarks in the current budget. Holtz-Eakin “declined to say whether McCain would ever begin to name programs he’ll cut.”