During a time of huge deficits, spending bill shouldn't be filled with pork

The Daily Sentinel ^ | 12/09/03 | Editorial

[Holly_P]

Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay calls his party's $373 billion spending bill "worthy of the national challenges it meets."

Republican House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young says it's "the best product we could provide.”

Democratic Rep. David Obey says it's not only "a bad bill" but "a gratuitous insult to every worker entitled to overtime pay."

The president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Tom Schatz says not only are the Republicans three months behind in presenting the bill, they've apparently spent the time to "pile on the pork."

DeLay says the bill is an "achievement in fiscal restraint," while fellow Republican, Jeff Flake of Arizona describes it as a bill exploding with earmarks.

So who are we to believe?

Obey told the Associated Press that the bill contains more than 7,000 home district projects worth more than $7.5 billion.

The CAGW, a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog organization says that among those projects are:

-- $2 million for The First Tee Program in St. Augustine, Fla. to provide affordable access to golf for everyone, especially kids;

-- $1.8 million for the Appalachian fruit laboratory in Kearneysville, W.Va.;

-- $500,000 for Salt Lake City, Utah for the Pete Suazo Business Center to purchase building space;

-- $447,000 for halibut data collection in Alaska;

-- $325,000 for the City of Salinas, California for the construction of a swimming pool;

-- $270,000 for potato storage in Madison, Wisc.; and

-- $250,000 for the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center in Prosser, Wash., for construction costs.

When Congress is facing a $500 billion deficit, how is spending $2 million to make golf affordable to kids in Florida showing fiscal restraint?

Sure, $2 million is barely a blip on the calculator in comparison to $373 billion and $270,000 for potato storage even less. But it adds up — to billions of dollars.

Fortunately, it appears there's a good chance that the bill will not make it through the Senate, due to opposition from conservatives, Republican and Democrats alike.

At a time when DeLay's native state and the cities, counties and school districts in it, are dealing with deficits and cutbacks, we have to wonder how he can possibly characterize a bill that includes this kind of spending as "a success" for the American people.

At least Young has the good sense to admit that it's flawed, although declaring that a spending bill produced three months late, full of administrative initiatives, decisions on federal policies and parochial projects is the best Republicans can do, doesn't say much for the party.

Congressman Flake seems to say it best when he declares that “We as Republicans have exploded the number of earmarks. We seem to have no shame.”

That, we can believe.

[Reagan Man]

Here's a more extensive list of endless pork projects tacked onto the lasted bloated federal budget.

$725,000
Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

$200,000
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, Ohio

$1,800,000
2003 Women’s World Cup Tournament

$6,000,000
Police Athletic League

$250,000
Call Me Mister program, Clemson University

$500,000
New England Amer-I-Can Program

$150,000
Rock School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

$16,000
National Distance Running Hall of Fame, Utica, New York

$225,000
Hawaii statehood celebration

$325,000
Construction of a swimming pool in Salinas, California

$100,000
History competition during National History Day in Iowa

$175,000
Therapeutic Horse man ship center, Hoffman Homes for Youth, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

$315,000
Formosan Subterranean Termite research

$100,000
Public service recognition week

$50,000
Father Maloney’s Boy’s Haven, Louisville, Kentucky

$75,000
Vintage Radio Programs and Jazz Museum, East Stroudsburg University

$100,000
Kids Rock Free educational program, Fender Museum of the Arts Foundation, Corona, California

$100,000
Renovation of the historic Coca-Cola building in Macon, Georgia

$100,000
Construction of an intergenerational daycare center in San Fernando Valley, California

$372,000
B&O Railroad Museum emergency restoration, Baltimore, Maryland

$75,000
Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Washington, DC

$225,000
Construction of Blue-Gray Civil War Theme Park, Kentucky

$75,000
North Pole Transit System JARC Program, Alaska

$250,000
Feasibility study of establishing Suffolk (Virginia) Workforce Development Center

$350,000
Construction for a folk cultural center in Pinellas County, Florida

$400,000
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky

$90,000
Olive fruitfly research

$150,000
Traffic light, Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District, New York

$100,000
People for People, Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

$100,000
Amphitheater construction, North Star Productions, Inc., Bracken County, Kentucky

$2,000,000
First Tee program

$150,000
Regional Youth Baseball Complex Lancaster, California

$100,000
John Singelton Mosby Museum Foundation in Warrenton, Virginia

$180,000
Seafood waste research, Fairbanks, Alaska

$400,000
Walla Walla Public Schools, Walla Walla, Washington

$900,000
Kincaid Park Trail Connection, Alaska

$20,000
Southern Star Development Corporation, Louisville, Kentucky

$85,000
Comprehensive Transportation Plan for Lewisburg, West Virginia

$100,000
Norman Hall project, University of Florida

$225,000
Museum of Aviation Foundation Inc, Warner Robins, Georgia

$250,000
Lou Frey Institute of Politics, University of Central Florida

$270,000
Sustainable olive production

$5,000,000
Kennedy Center Potomac River Pedestrian and Bike Path

$100,000
National Civil War Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

$200,000
Cedar glades research

$250,000
Theater construction, Studio for the Arts, Pocahontas, Arkansas

$2,000,000
Intermodal Transload Facility, Quincy, Washington

$110,000
Construction of a dental clinic in Bassfield, Mississippi

$220,000
New Mexico Retail Association, Albuquerque, New Mexico

$400,000
Davenport Music History Museum, Davenport, Iowa

$3,000,000
US 12 Widening, Wallula Junction to Walla Walla, Washington

$25,000
Alex Haley House Museum, Henning, Tennessee

$225,000
Rialto Square Theater, Joliet, Illinois

$5,000,000
Project SOCRATES

$90,000
Rabbit Run Community Arts Association, Madison, Ohio

$150,000
Renovation off Farmers market, Dallas, Texas

$200,000
Merit School of Music’s after school program

$200,000
Advanced Traffic Analysis Center, North Dakota

$250,000
Nevada Test Site Oral History Project

$400,000
National Center for American Revolution, Wayne, Pennsylvania

$1,000,000
Hal Rogers Parkway, Kentucky

$1,000,000
Ship Creek Improvements, Alaska

$2,000,000
I-SAFE America

$50,000
National Canal Museum, Easton, Pennsylvania

$100,000
Mystic Seaport, the Museum of America and the Sea

$200,000
Renovation of First National Bank Building, Greenfield, Massachusetts

$250,000
Martha’s Village and Kitchen, Indio, California

$270,000
Potato storage

$1,000,000
Transylvania Community Hospital, Brevard, North Carolina

$6,000,000
Treasure Island Bridge

$80,000
Hot Springs Bike Trail, Arkansas

$90,000
Karnal bunt research, Manhattan, Kansas

$175,000
Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas

$210,000
O. Winston Link Museum, Roanoke, Virginia

$250,000
James S. Taylor Memorial Home, Louisville, Kentucky

$250,000
Museum of Broadcast Communications, Chicago, Illinois

$500,000
Traffic Signal Replacement Program, New Rochelle, New York

$2,000,000
Parents Anonymous

$100,000
"Servicing our Youth"

$275,000
Refurbishment of the Coach George E. Ford Center, Powder Springs, Georgia

$150,000
Piper’s Opera House Programs, Inc., Virginia City, Nevada

$270,000
U.S. Vegetable Lab

$1,250,000
US-2, Dover Bridge, Bonner County, Idaho

$25,000
Capitol Area Boy Scouts

$113,000
Healing Place, Louisville, Kentucky

$500,000
Jim Thorpe Bridge Renovation Project, Pennsylvania

$600,000
Web Wise Kids

$800,000
Mammoth Lakes Bus Purchase, California

$100,000
Renovate the Jamestown (Ohio) Opera House

$400,000
Ed Roberts Campus transit center, California

$750,000
The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able program

$160,000
Grapevine Bus Purchase, Texas

$500,000
Round Rock Higher Education Center, Southwest Texas State University

$1,400,000
Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, Arizona

$25,000
Transylvania County, North Carolina, Sheriff’s Citizens Observer Patrol and Education Team

$200,000
Chaldean Community Culture Center, West Bloomfield, Michigan

$300,000
Milwaukee Summer Stars

$450,000
Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center, Inc., Ashland County, Ohio

$750,000
Intelligent Transportation Systems, Wichita Transit Authority

$1,500,000
Operation Streetsweeper

$125,000
Planning for new route over Cape Fear River, North Carolina

$300,000
Omnitrans—Paratransit Vehicles, California

$500,000
Bike path, St. Petersburg, Florida

$1,000,000
WestStart Vehicular Flywheel Project, Washington

$15,000
Pines of Peace, Inc., Ontario, New York

$75,000
U.S. Dream Academy, Inc., Columbia, Maryland

$200,000
Oneont Bus Replacement, New York

$450,000
Trout Genome Mapping

$500,000
LOVE Social Services, Fairbanks, Alaska

$750,000
Broken Bow rail spur, Oklahoma

$2,000,000
Tools for Tolerance program, California

$150,000
National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation

$1,000,000
DelTrac Statewide Integration, Delaware

[Coleus]

So much for republicans being fiscal conservatives. Seems we still have a one party system.