By Matt Gauntt
A few days ago, the US House of Representatives passed a $410 Billion spending bill on top of the roughly $800 Billion "Stimulus Bill" that they passed a couple weeks ago. I spent some time going through the earmarks that are listed. Taxpayers for Common Sense has a set of downloadable files that outlines the various earmarks. I only went through two of the eleven files, but here are a few of the gems that I found.
- $1,088,000 for the Animal Waste Management Research Laboratory in Bowling Green, KY
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$638,000 for Foundry Sand By-Products Utilization Research, Beltsville, MD.
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Sorghum Research, but not just one location. We are funding $246,000 in Lubbock, TX, $452,000 in Bushland, TX and $135,000 in Little Rock, AR. Is it too much to ask that worthless research only gets conducted in one location?
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Senator Harkin in Iowa got $1,791,000 for Swine Odor and Manure Management Research. I wonder if this research will help get rid of the stench coming out of Washington DC with all of the pork in this bill.
- $443,000 for Beaver Management in Mississippi and $208,000 for Beaver Management in North Carolina. I used to work with a guy that trapped beaver for the fur. Are you going to try and convince me that we need $651,000 to control beavers instead of just calling "Bubba" and saying "Hey, there's a beaver over there. Wanta trap him?"
- We're going to spend $119,000 in Kansas, $94,000 in Louisiana and $265,000 in North and South Dakota controlling Blackbirds. Maybe after they figure out how to control the beavers, they can send Bubba to North Dakota for a weekend.
- $1,049,000 for Mormon Cricket control in Utah. Maybe Bubba is not interested in crickets.
- $466,000 for the "Ohio-Israel Agriculture Initiative". Seriously, you can't make this up. I'm guessing this got started because there is so much in common between Israel and Ohio. Israel is a Mediterranean climate and Ohio is blanketed by snow. They speak different languages. One is on the metric system, the other is on the imperial system. They grow different crops........yeah, I can see this one.
- $1,002,000 for Mississippi Valley State University for Curriculum Development. Ummmmm, so what have the kids been doing up to this point, just reading from the Oprah Book Club?
- $245,000 for research into Jointed Goatgrass in Idaho and Washington. I had to look this one up. Goatgrass?? There is a full websitethat already shows how to control goatgrass and there are several ways to deal with the problem. There's a nice chemical company that will sell you a bottle of stuff to help get rid of it. So what wonderful oddities about goatgrass are there that we still need to learn about?
- $280,000 for research into alternative uses for tobacco. I wonder if Michael Phelps will help with the research. Oh year, that was a different kind of leaf. Nevermind.
- The Amery Municipal Airport in Amery is going to get $950,000 to repave a taxiway and ramp area. Amery is a town of 2,800 in NW Wisconsin that is essentially a resort community. It's about 30 miles from St. Paul, MN. I guess if you are going to a resort, you wouldn't want to drive an extra half hour.
- $475,000 for ramp and runway improvements at the Staley County Airport near Albemarie, NC. Albemarie is another resort community of 15,000 near Charlotte, NC. But, at roughly half the cost of the Amery Airport project, this one is a bargain.
- $190,000 for the Benzie Transportation Authority in northwest Michigan. I had to look this one up too. In 2007, the Benzie Transportation Authority served 26,000 riders for a total cost of $820,000. This equates to roughly $30/rider. The average trip length was 2.6 miles. This service is used primarily by the elderly. I'm sorry, but just thinking of the economics, if you just gave the money to the local taxi company and said "hey, $30 to give someone a ride, and you only have to drive them 2.6 miles", I think you would have a deal and we wouldn't need another governmental entity.
- $1,425,000 for the Enumclaw Welcome Center Intermodal Transit Facility in Washington. This is essentially the entrance to a national park near Tacoma. Probably a really nice place to visit, but is this what we want to spend our money on right now? A simple parking lot wouldn't do?
- Under the heading "Have you been reading the papers, lately", we are going to spend millions across the country to construct new affordable housing units. Ummmmm - All around the country there are millions of homes that are available right now, and they have become pretty affordable - just buy a couple of those instead of having the government try their hand at building some new ones.
- There are dozens of earmarks for Cities that have decided to try their hand at business park development. Basic scenario: Small town. Wants industry, even though industry doesn't wan them. Buys some land. Gets handout from the federal government. Builds the infrastructure. Still, no one wants to put their business there. Cities should not be in competition with private industry.
- $475,000 for the Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture to restore the museum. And where is this museum located?? Not in Puerto Rico. It's in Chicago.
- $475,000 for the Italian American Museum in New York to renovate and expand the facility.
- $166,250 for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia to construct a community center.
- $237,500 for the Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet. What is really funny about this is that the sponsor is Congressman Jerry Weller. Yes, that's right - the FORMER Congressman. Evidently, it is so easy to get a Federal earmark, and they are so callous about watching what is going on, that someone must have just grabbed a list of everything Congressmen have wanted for the last couple years and just threw it all together. I wonder if there are any earmarks from Dan Rostenkowski in this bill?
Like I said early, this just comes from 2 of the 11 documents that you can look at. These are also just a very few of the earmarks that came from about 200 pages just from these two documents. There are thousands of earmarks. Many are probably very worthy projects, but are all of them necessary at this time in our economy??
