Americans are very present minded people. We are outraged about something for about three days – a week at most. Then it is on to Britney’s latest outburst or O.J. robbing someone. That can be the only way politicians can get away with crap like this:
Six weeks after a fatal Minneapolis bridge collapse prompted criticism of federal spending priorities, the Senate approved a transportation and housing bill Wednesday containing at least $2 billion for pet projects that include a North Dakota peace garden, a Montana baseball stadium and a Las Vegas history museum.
That’s not the half of it.
Total spending on transportation “earmarks” next year is likely to be about $8 billion, when legislative projects from a previously approved, five-year highway bill are factored in. A newly released report by the Department of Transportation’s inspector general identified 8,056 earmarks totaling $8.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended in October, or 13.5% of the Transportation Department’s $63 billion spending plan.
One of the guys responsible for this outrageous amount of money being spent where it shouldn’t be is “Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.” His home state just hosted the latest example of America’s poor infrastructure. Jim here decided that what his state really needed was…wait for it…a $250,000 bike path.Â
You paid for it.
It gets worse. In order to then fund the infrastructure repairs, Jim shows his Democrat roots. He suggests a tax increase on gas.
One member of the Senate who is a hero of mine is Tom Coburn. He , and a few others, fight against earmarks. They fought against this waste.
Coburn’s staff identified 500 earmarks in the bill, totaling $2 billion, that were publicly disclosed under new rules designed to shed some light on the practice.
“No one in America seriously believes that bike paths, peace gardens and baseball stadiums are more important national priorities than bridge and road repairs,” Coburn said.
Coburn and a handful of other lawmakers routinely try to strip bills of earmarks, only to see colleagues crush them with bipartisan efficiency.
On Tuesday, Coburn offered an amendment prohibiting spending on earmarks until every structurally deficient bridge was fixed. It lost, 82 to 14.
Pathetic.
