Say Anything Blog

...Congress is busy appropriating pork to amusement parks and pack mule museums.

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

Now flashback to the 2005 highway bill which had 6,300 earmarks totaling $24.2 billion:

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?

But the problem with crumbling roads and bridges is that we’re not being taxed enough, right?

Wrong.

Now keep in mind that not all earmarks are bad earmarks.  Many times earmarks go specifically to repair a certain bridge or maintain other parts of infrastructure.  But for every good earmark there’s a bad one where we waste money on a pack mule museum while bridges need maintenance.

The solution for the entire problem is more transparency in the earmarking process so ensure that our politicians are spending this money on the right priorities - bridges and roads - and not pork for amusement parks.