To be honest, with so many easy targets in the stimulus, I thought this was a bad choice by Jindal, just because that Alaskan volcano has been threatening lately. Imagine if ther is a city affecting eruption after Jindal singled this out?
Imagine if the entire $1,000,0000,0000,000 was investeted in volcano monitoring. Our nation would be up to it’s armpits in debt, the economy would still suck, and the volcano would still erupt. That’s what volcanos do sometimes, even if you decide to build a city next to them.
Meanwhile, earmarks like volcano monitoring have zero to do with stimulating the economy. A better use of the money would be on military spending, because obviously Palin will have to call the troops in after the volcano erupts.
There also was a volcano that erupted last year (Kasatochi) that didn’t have it’s own monitoring equipment, as it had never had a confirmed historical eruption and the Alaska Volcano Observatory only has the money to monitor a few volcanoes. A couple fish and game scientists were on the island and were evacuated only 30 minutes before it violently exploded, by a passing fishing boat.
The Yellowstone Caldera is far more urgent.
I agree, a horrible target for Jindal.
But then put it in the budget, not the Stimulus. Did you notice the proponent in this article refers to it as an “earmark?” Obama says there were no earmarks!