February 25th 2009
Spending Like It’s 1929
A
s the economy crashes around them and families across America are cutting back on expenses, the Democratic congress is behaving like a Gatsby in mid-1929. The new Duesenberg is sure pretty, but is this really the time to buy it?
While the president spoke of no earmarks in the stimulus bill – a mere technicality, since the pots of earmark money are in it – Congress readies an omnibus spending bill that has more earmarks than a dairy herd: $7.7 billion of ‘em, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. And that’s on top of $6.6 billion in earmarks in the spending bill that passed in the fall of ’09. Here’s some of what TCS found:
$713,625 Woody Biomass at SUNY-ESF. Walsh and Schumer sponsors<
$951,500 Sustainable Las Vegas. Berkeley and Reid sponsors.
$24,000 A+ for Abstinence. Specter is sponsor.
$300,000 Montana World Trade Center. Rehberg sponsor.
$950,000 Myrtle Beach International Trade and Convention Center. Graham sponsor.
$200,000 Oil Region Alliance. Peterson sponsor.
$190,000 Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY for digitizing and editing the Cody collection. Barbara Cubin is the sponsor
$143,000 Las Vegas Natural History Museum, Las Vegas, NV, to expand natural history education programs. Sponsored by Harry Reid
$238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Honolulu, HI, for educational programs. Sen. Daniel Inouye is the sponsor.
$381,000 for Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, NY for music education programs. Jerrold Nadler is the sponsor.
Don’t you think Pinkie Reid might have pitched in to the deficit-fighting and delayed the new programs at the Vegas Natural History Museum for a few years? I mean, folks don’t go to Vegas to see stuffed critters in dioramas. And if Buffalo Bill’s documents have made it this far without digitizing, couldn’t they go a few more years?
All in all, Federal agencies will get eight percent more money under this bill than they received last year. I don’t know about you, but the Pearce budget is definitely not eight percent higher than it was last year. But there is the Ag Dept. with an eight percent increase and money-losing Amtrak with a 10 percent increase … and, in the ultimate slap in our face, Congress itself, with a hefty 10 percent budget increase.
Couldn’t they re-use their paper clips?
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