With 75,000 Bridges Deemed "Structurally Deficient," Congress Porks Out On Amusement Park Renovations and the "National Mule and Packer Museum"

Tipped to this by someone in the anti-pork Congressional camp. He sent along a long list of newspaper citations for the earmarks but I'm going to omit them.

I have, however, passed them around to other bloggers who assure me these "smell good." If it's enough for TNR ("the in-flight magazine of Air Force One!") it's good enough for me.

With bridges collapsing and the national debt expected to reach $9 trillion in weeks, Congress continues its spending spree.

$200,000 earmark to finance a single bus in Michigan
$200,000 to reconstruct a parking lot in Massachusetts
$300,000 to renovate an amusement park in Texas
$50,000 to establish the National Mule and Packer Museum in California
$250,000 to expand a parking garage in California
$250,000 for a community center at the county fairgrounds in Ohio
$265,000 for a cinema in Massachusetts
$200,000 for a new artificial field in Massachusetts
$1,000,000 to extend a rail trail by 14 miles
$200,000 to relocate a library in Connecticut

More... below. It gets worse.

I thought you all might be interested in the following information about the infamous 2005 highway bill. The bill contained more than 6,300 earmarks, including the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska, at a cost of $24.2 billion.
The state of Minnesota received 147 earmarks from the bill worth $495 million according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Included in the list of Minnesota transportation earmarks are “high priority” projects like $1.578 million for bicycle trail construction, $1.3 million for a new visitor’s center, and $1.52 for streetscape construction.
The inclusion of these seemingly unnecessary earmarks begs the question: if these are designated by Congress as a “high priority,” then what does a low priority look like?

"Low priority" looks an awful lot like a collapsed bridge.

I'm pushing the idea of a law undoing all transportation bill earmarks in favor of critical infrastructure repair. Others are talking about increasing gas taxes -- well, that may or may not be necessary, but first, oughtn't we free up all of these dodgy earmarks for actual infrastructure repair to see how much more we really need?

Hopefully McCain will get on board with this. He's already made the connection between pork and the collapse.

Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM

Comments

1 Did the feds not already give billions to the states for infrastructure? What did the states do with it? 50K for a historical museum is chump change. So, where did all the money go for bridges?

Posted by: dave at August 06, 2007 12:35 PM (WY9+V)

>>$200,000 for a new artificial field in Massachusetts

WTF? Are they running out of Natural Fields? What is the Carbon Footprint impact of a 'artificial field'?

What the eff is a 'artificial field' anyway?

Posted by: Tushar D at August 06, 2007 12:36 PM (IlgNp)

3 Just because states like Minn. and Louisianna have mismanaged money already given to them to maintain their infrastructure doesn't mean everyone else has to suffer. It just means we have to stay out of Minn and La.

Posted by: dave at August 06, 2007 12:39 PM (WY9+V)

4 Tom Delay was on FoxNews yesterday (not sure of the show probably FoxNews Sunday but I'm not 100% on that) defending earmarks. It was quite a performance. If he still has any influence in the Republican Party the Republican Party is screwed.

Posted by: Big E at August 06, 2007 01:05 PM (uw1/g)

5 Someone here or over at HA posted in the comments the amount of $$ congress had previously granted Minn for improvement of infrastructure and noted it was a 40% increase over the Clinton years. Again, it was in the billions. So, where did it go?

Posted by: dave at August 06, 2007 01:11 PM (WY9+V)

6 Big E.

Let's hope he doesn't. Don't forget Delay was the guy who just before he quit said, there was no more fat to cut in the federal budget.

I think you can count the number of Representatives and Senators who really have any concept of fiscal discipline on both your hands.

Must be fun spending outer people's money to your benefit.

Posted by: Drew at August 06, 2007 01:14 PM (hlYel)

7 Yet more evidence that we already pay faaaar too much in taxes.

Posted by: bmac at August 06, 2007 01:36 PM (GPVwP)

8 Bridges? What bridges? We ain't got no damn bridges. We don't need no stinkin bridges.

Posted by: mikeyslaw at August 06, 2007 01:36 PM (yrptY)

In other words, the DNC/MSM talking point is: "Let us raise your taxes to further unGodly heights, or YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE"

But it's the GOP that engages in 'scaremongering'

Posted by: TMF at August 06, 2007 01:44 PM (+Ac3z)

10 Again, it was in the billions. So, where did it go?

I think I'd start checking some freezers up in Minnesota.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at August 06, 2007 01:58 PM (0d45V)

11 My favorite is the National Telecommunications and Information Administrations' "Digital TV Converter Box Coupon Program, authorized in the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005. Between Jan. 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009, all U.S. households will be eligible to request up to two coupons, worth $40 each, to be used toward the purchase of up to two, digital-to-analog converter boxes, while the initial $990 million allocated for the program is available."

990.
million.
bucks.

Or from 2 to 4 I35W Bridges, depending on whose guesstimates you believe.

And best of all, the NTIA will bravely soldier on after this program is done, because they have other important work to do that you've never heard of. Or cared about.

Posted by: chuckR at August 06, 2007 02:00 PM (XLu7l)

12 I think you can count the number of Representatives and Senators who really have any concept of fiscal discipline on both your hands.

Both hands???

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at August 06, 2007 02:02 PM (tVbxd)

13 Boston. Party. Something about Tea.

Posted by: bmac at August 06, 2007 02:50 PM (GPVwP)

14 Good to see ol' Teddy is gettin r done for us here in MA. Hooowhee! New parkin' lot, new astro turf, new thee-ay-ter.

Now, I don't know what the parking lot or astro turf are for, but isn't a movie theater kind of a commercial venture? The kind that would be built by investors of some sort rather than by the Federal Gov't?

Quel boondoggle. (Seein' that Sarkozy's in town and might stop by. Hey there, Kozy!)

Posted by: red speck at August 06, 2007 03:03 PM (Lc9rf)

15 The Packer Museum -- is that NFL or NAMBLA?

Posted by: John Murtha at August 06, 2007 03:26 PM (ZeIkZ)

16 That wasn't actually John Murtha. Just a sock puppet from a previous post. Sorry.

Posted by: km at August 06, 2007 03:27 PM (ZeIkZ)

17 With bridges collapsing and the national debt expected to reach $9 trillion in weeks, Congress continues its spending spree.

Really? Did another bridge collapse? Is it possible for TNR to inflect their lead sentence with factual grammatical number?

Posted by: bour3 at August 06, 2007 04:01 PM (9YONe)

18 Face it. We're broke. All this moving figures around a spreadsheet is nothing more than ghost money.

While everyone is laughing at Louisiana, there's a whole lot of freezers being filled up everywhere else.

Posted by: TheSev at August 06, 2007 05:43 PM (bajTN)

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