Posted on 10/19/2010 6:51:19 AM PDT by ejdrapes
Despite vocal criticism of the federal stimulus package and a re-election campaign that trades heavily on her opposition to it, Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann sought stimulus funding on at least seven occasions last year.
The requests, which came in August and September of 2009, were released Sunday by the investigative journalism site Center for Public Integrity.
They include a request for funding for a $150 million expansion of the Northstar commuter rail line to St. Cloud — something Bachmann had declined to back just months earlier.
The Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan Washington-based group, said Bachmann was among almost 2,000 GOP and Democratic stimulus opponents who wrote behind-the-scenes
letters requesting funds for projects.
Bachmann defended her request for money from the $787 billion stimulus package, even though in her latest ads she refers to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as "the failed (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi trillion-dollar stimulus."
In a statement, she continued to attack the package, which she voted against, saying it has been misspent.
"It is my obligation as a member of Congress to ensure stimulus dollars are spent on the most worthy projects," Bachmann said in a statement. "I did just that when I supported applications for the (stimulus) grant program."
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
She is saying one thing and doing another. That is the textbook definition of a hypocrite.
consider the source...
“HuffPo Investigative Fund Partners Up With The Center For Public Integrity”
I guess it is water under the bridge at the moment.
So shouldn't we be asking if the money she grabbed went to boondoggles in her state or did the stimulus funds generate the intended results. Jobs, wealth, income?
On the one hand, I would have liked it if all conservatives had refused to accept or request any stimulus money.
On the other, since their constituents are going to be stuck paying down the debt like everyone else, they may as well get some value for their money.
I think she stepped in it on this one, though. It might be different were it a project really needed.
Anyone who has followed Northstar knows it’s a boondoggle Willie Green would be proud of.
The Northstar line must be critical to our national defense.
The Northstar line must be critical to our national defense.
Sounds like cutting off your nose and the noses of your children to spite your faces, but so be it.
Rep. Michele Bachmann wrote letters in support of these projects receiving stimulus funds. None was funded.
# Northstar Phase II
# St. Croix River bridge crossing
# I-94 westbound lane addition and eastbound reconstruction, between Albertville and Rogers
# Road improvements in Sartell
# University Drive bridge/corridor expansion, St. Cloud
# Minnesota 15 and 33rd Street South interchange right of way and construction, St. Cloud and Waite Park
# Albany Mutual Telephone to provide broadband access for the cities of Avon and Holdingford
NONE WERE FUNDED! Interesting...a Republican requests funds stimulus funds and NONE were funded by the democrats?
See there are a lot of interesting ways this can be played.
The Center for Public Integrity is a U.S.-based non-profit investigative journalism group that was founded by Charles Lewis.
From l977 to l988 he did investigative reporting at ABC News and CBS News 60 Minutes.
******
PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS is the largest funding source for the Tides Center, having given the latter nearly $109 million between 1990 and 2002. Other PCT grantees include:
the Center for Public Integrity
In addition to earmarking enormous sums of money to fund the projects and activities of the aforementioned organizations, PCT also proposes its own policy solutions in a number of areas:
Global Warming
Wilderness Protection
Protecting Ocean Life
Death Penalty Reform
PCT is a member organization of the International Human Rights
******
Huffington Post Investigative Fund Merges With Center for Public Integrity
When we spoke to Arianna Huffington earlier this summer, she expressed regret that her nonprofit, open-source Huffington Post Investigative Fund was not having much luck getting its work picked up by media outlets
Huffington announced today that the Fund was going to separate itself further from the website by joining forces with the Center for Public Integrity. Ryan Tate at Gawker notes that, because the Fund seemed only to supply the for-profit HuffPo with stories, it was having trouble earning tax-exempt status for itself. This separation could help with that — though it looks like the Fund will still have most of its stories published on HuffPo as a matter of course.
Is it a boondoggle along the lines of a Big Dig scale?
I stand some what corrected in that NONE of her requests were funded. So thereby we will never know if the projects would have had the intended results.
Northstar Running An Operating Deficit of More Than $1 Million a Month
Good Deal for Riders Leads to $7.5 Million Subsidy So Far This Year
http://freedomfoundationofminnesota.com/northstar-running-an-operating-deficit-of-more-than-1-million-a-month
Couldn't all the other congressmen who accepted stimulus funds make the same claims? And suppose she could show that it did generate the intended results, then doesn't she have to admit that the stimulus was a success? At least where she was concerned?
She is not saying one thing and doing another. She is saying that we should not have passed the stimulus, and should never pass another. But, to turn up your nose at the money that has already been taken by force of law from your constituents, and is being passed back out, would be just stupid, not principled.
Uh...this ain’t going to children folks(even if it was I would be opposed)...this money is going to Bachman’s special interests...these projects OBVIOUSLY are not worthy or the state or local would have already funded them.
One it is corrupt and two it is illegal she does NOT have the authority to do this. period.
Would my children be upset if I spent their inheritance (and freedom) on a worthless metro rail???
So?
Center for Public Integrity
Bill Buzenberg became Executive Director of the Center for Public Integrity in January 2007.
He was Vice President of News for National Public Radio
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, Chairperson
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, a former senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and contributing writer to the Los Angeles Times
Read the whole article. She didn't get any of it. All her requests went unfunded.
There has to be a national defense aspect to Northstar or she wouldn’t have asked for the funds.
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