|
Flashback
(####)
”Earmark Reform must do more than identify an earmark’s sponsor. We need to curb the proliferation of unnecessary and suspect earmarks.”
Then DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel
(Townhall.com, 9/12/2006)
Today's Wall Street Journal
Can't Take My Eyes Off of Me
New York's Charlie Rangel provoked smirks this week when news emerged that the Harlem Congressman was humbly seeking a $2 million earmark to create a "Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service" at the City College of New York.
Titters turned to dropped jaws yesterday when a 20-page glossy brochure popped up, describing the yet-to-be-created center. That flyer, which asks for donations, explains that organizers need a mere $4.7 million to restore a "magnificent Harlem limestone townhouse" that will house the center, plus another $2.3 million endowment for its operating costs.
What, overtaxed taxpayers might ask, would all this money buy? One dollop would go to provide "a well-furnished office for Congressman Rangel" and another dollop would fund "the Rangel Library," which will be "designed to hold the product of 50 years of public service by the major African-American statesman of the 20th and early 21st centuries."
According to the brochure, the library not only would tell "the story of one great man.... The Rangel archivist/librarian will organize, index, and preserve for posterity all documents, photographs, and memorabilia relating to Congressman Rangel's career."
Oh yes, and the center would also offer students a master's program in public service.
Most Americans might find this taxpayer-funded monument to one member's ego a poor use of public money, but not many of Mr. Rangel's logrolling House colleagues do. Yesterday, Republican Study Committee Member John Campbell brought an amendment to the House floor that would have stripped Mr. Rangel's homage to himself. He was defeated 316-108. Only one Democrat voted to kill the earmark. It seems Congress is just as committed to weeding out egregious pork as it ever was -- which is to say, not at all.
-- Kim Strassel
This Earmark Is a Fraud on Congress
Democrats won control of Congress last year in part by railing against the pathetic record of Republicans in approving earmarks -- pork-laden favors for prominent constituents that are often slipped into bills without hearings or adequate oversight. Think of the infamous $223 million dollar Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska.
But Democrats have completely failed to stem the onslaught of earmarks, which are more numerous than ever. Some transparency reforms did allow pork-busting Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona to challenge a $1 million earmark Wednesday on the House floor, with hilarious results.
Trolling through a lengthy list of earmarks proposed by the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Flake asked Democratic Rep. Peter Visclosky of Indiana, chairman of the subcommittee handling the earmarks, if he knew anything about a $1 million grant to the "Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure" in Johnstown, PA, the largest city in Rep. Jack Murtha's congressional district.
Mr. Flake noted that the money had apparently some connection to Concurrent Technologies Corporation, a firm located in Mr. Murtha's district, which had previously been the recipient of "many millions" in earmarks. Mr. Flake said the company appeared to be an "earmark incubator" which collected federal money and only later found a way to spend it. Mr. Flake's staff, he said, had been unable to find a Website for the mysterious Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure and he was frankly skeptical that it was an up-and-running concern. The Appropriations Committee also had been of no help in learning more about it. "Does the center currently exist?" he asked Mr. Visclosky.
"At this time, I do not know," the Indiana Democrat replied. "But if it does not exist, the monies could not go to it."
Congress can't approve a million-dollar grant to a non-existent organization? Think again. In a classic demonstration of members protecting each other when it comes to local pork, Mr. Flake's amendment to strike the possibly non-existent center's grant failed. He won support from only 98 members, while 326 members whooped the expenditure through.
At this rate, Mr. Flake has a good case that the entire earmark process is a bipartisan hive of corruption. The difference between his efforts against earmarks last year and this year, sadly, is that now with Democrats in charge, his anti-pork crusade has a much harder time getting media attention.
|
