Dems to wipe out pet projects in bills

[deadparrot]

WASHINGTON - Democrats tidying up a cluster of unfinished spending bills dumped on them by departing Republican leaders in Congress will start by removing billions of dollars in lawmakers' pet projects next month.

The move, orchestrated by the incoming chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees, could prove politically savvy even as it proves unpopular with other members of Congress, who as a group will lose thousands of so-called earmarks.

"There will be no congressional earmarks," Rep. David Obey (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., and Sen. Robert Byrd (news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va., said Monday in a statement announcing their plans, which were quickly endorsed by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Earmarks are congressionally mandated projects such as grants for local governments, home-state universities and hospitals, roads, bridges and flood control construction, and economic development efforts not included in the president's spending proposals.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061212/ap_on_go_co/congress_pet_projects

[madrchsod]

1. sounds good but it won`t happen

after all that`s why we elect these people to congress is`t it?

[Buzz Clik]

14. It's not why we elect them, but you're still correct.

[Toots]

16. Ear marks went from a few hundred during Clinton years to over six thousand

now a days. Republicans railed agaist them in early '90s and it was one reason they gained control. See how they govern...They needed a Written "Contract with America" to show how they keep their word...:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Blue_Tires]

46. i remember those days as well

even in the 80s i remember the GOP being the "anti-pork" and "stop government waste" party

[mediaman007]

2. Wow! That's something that "grown-ups" would do...

I'm guessing that the Democrats have plans to stick around for a while. How does W* veto a bill that doesn't spend enough?

[seriousstan]

3. I guess Byrd finally ran out of things to name after himself in his state.

[lynne]

11. You took the words right out of my mouth!

:rofl:

[ItNerd4life]

34. So true,

thanks for the laugh.

[ToeBot]

37. I guess the probability of yet another term is pretty slim. nt

[lakeguy]

4. funny, when the dems start talking about ending this kind of stuff

they refer to pork as "grants for local governments, home-state universities and hospitals, roads, bridges and flood control construction, and economic development efforts" instead of highlighting "bridges to no where". makes it sound like all the pork is great the way it is written now.

[ryanmuegge]

36. That's because they're all for maintaining the Washtington status-quo.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. It would be a good start if it happens.

The pressure to not make it happen will be huge.

[TheMadMonk]

6. How about this? Ear mark a certain percentage,..

...and then everybody's pet project gets voted on and ranked. Run down the list until the entire earmark percentage is spent.

[Skittles]

7. yeah

make the pie finite and make 'em justify the size of their slice of the pie

[w4rma]

8. Good. (nt)

[The Wizard]

9. cutting off federal money to

the reddest states. The blues states pay a disproportionate share of tax money and the red states take an equally disproportionate share of that money because the red states keep re-electing their Congressmen and Senators, thus giving them seniority and committee chairs that allow them to direct cash to their respective regions.

[trogdor]

24. Sounds nice, but unfortunately...

...revenue sharing is the key way we keep certain regions of the country from slipping into Third World status. So yes, we spend to maintain highways in Alabama, even though it's people in New York who foot most of the bill. We accept it to keep America uniformly (more or less) American.

You could apply the "screw the red states" sentiment all the way down to local level. Tell me, though, would you want a poverty and crime filled festering slum ten minutes' driving distance from your nice, expensive suburban house if you could do something about it?

[heinz]

10. Are we gonna be tax and spend, or smart with the cash?

If this is true, it would be an incredibly smart move by the Democrats. It may be possible to seize the day on this because what ushered in the Republicans 12 years ago was a belief that somehow the Republicans would get a hold of out of control federal spending and would somehow do a better job at managing the money. It could be possible to show Americans that Democrats are also smart with money and shake of this image of being a tax-and-spend party. However, I will believe it when I see it.

[VP505]

12. I agree,

and also realize that with the cost of the Iraq war as the excuse that's been used to cut entitlement programs, it's going to be a real balancing act to do that. Question is, can the Dem leadership pull it off or will it be just another dog and pony show that will end up being used against them in 08?

[ClintonTyree]

20. I almost died when I read this line in the article....

"The bill should encounter little resistance from Republicans and the White House since it will stay within Bush's tight budget limits".

"Bush's tight budget limits"? :wtf: Since when has Bush had tight budget limits? He's been spending this country into the poor-house and now all of the sudden he's a fiscal conservative? :banghead: WHO WRITES THIS STUFF?

[trogdor]

26. You know...

...the tight limits Bush keeps talking about around budget time, and when people question him about the deficit. Shove that bullshit right back down his throat, I say.

[NYC Liberal]

30. Maybe "tight" as in, he wants to control what the money gets spent on

;) not necessarily cheap

[Joe Chi Minh]

44. Better to throw money at the people who paid it in taxes and their needs, than

than at big business and what its bright sparks prescribe, i.e one way or another, to line the pockets of the CEOs and directors. Just so that they can outsource more jobs abroad. That wouldn't be smart at all. now, would it?

Sounds like a great move by the Democratc leaders, to me.

[AngryAmish]

13. looks like the theives in Boston have to take care of themselves for once

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. Raises hand and says, "Stupid question time."

Just how severe would those cuts be? I mean, how much did Bush really give a damn about flood control construction or public infra-structure in general? Should we really use his spending proposal as a complete stop gap to good sense? I mean, this man was marching us into a Third World War and happily cut funds for veterans. Should we really trust his judgment? Personally, I think the dems should look at those earmarks carefully, because I would hate to see them hamstring something necessary that was added after the president's potential anemic proposal for public necessities.

[ItNerd4life]

35. I don't think it's a stupid question

but I do believe the pork projects got way out of control. If they kept the budget to a minimum, I think it would help. Or maybe only give each state a set amount. If the projects are larger than the set amount, the money can be rolled over into subsequent years.

Fiscal responsibility would be a huge help. We aren't getting it from Bush, the Democrats can lead the way. I think it would set a great precedent for 2008.

[confludemocrat]

40. Yours is the post here w/ the best relation to reality

These are cuts that have their basis in having been signed by Bush previously through political expediency, which this year he cynically intended to cut through political expediency, despite whatever good the spending did, and now the Dems are being useful idiots in headlong proposing to toss the baby out with the bathwater. As you so well state those add-ons should be looked at carefully, which should be on a case-by-case basis.

[Malidictus Maximus]

17. One person's pork is someone else's vitally needed infrastructure improvement.

[trogdor]

27. Well, then.

It shouldn't have any problem passing on its own merit.

[Malidictus Maximus]

45. Oh, I absolutely agree.

I'm just darn grateful to Congresswoman Woolsey for the highway 101 widening she managed to get through. Earmark or not I'm sure it looked like 'pork' to someone else in another part of the country:-)

[The Backlash Cometh]

48. Republicans are very good about turning people against people.

They WOULD find a way to make something like your highway improvement seem like pork. You're right about that.

[smoogatz]

18. This is a very good thing.

Earmarking on the one hand and corporate/lobbyist contributions on the other are the two ends of the Republican corruption machine. Time to pull the plug on that sumbitch.

[heinz]

19. You know tha pork is crap

Seems like I am hearing some old loser Democratic party sentiments from some posters here. This silly notion that we can spend our way out of anything, and spend our way into prosperity. Well if the big Republican win 12 years ago taught us anything , its that the voters aren't buying it. We have an opportunity here, handed too us on a silver platter and I for one am not going to allow big liberal spenders in my party to ruin it. People in the U.S. do like many of the Government programs that do exist, we know this is true, but to just throw a bunch of money at stuff without any kind of common sense or oversight will land right back where we were before the last election. I think more money could definitely goto putting more poor kids in good schools. Thats one of our best programs ever and theres really not much you can say bad about it. In other words, we can't just throw money at stuff, we need to get some good economists in our party, something I think we have lacked in the past and follow their recommendations. If we can show the voters that we can be trusted with their money and that were not gonna go running off coming up with all kinds of wacky programs that will end up a year from now in the news because of tons of corruption, like FEMA for example, come election time, all the swing voters will say "you know, those Dems did pretty good with the cash, better than the Repugs when they had it", thats exactly what I want to hear.

[Kablooie]

21. Uh oh. PETA won't like hearing that pet projects are being dumped.

[index555]

52. peta?

peta?
People eating tasty animals?

[truthisfreedom]

22. Obviate the k-street kids. Starve them out. Make them take real jobs.

[Roland99]

23. Sounds great but we really need Federal funds to help build a new bridge over the Ohio River.

we have such a bottleneck right at downtown Louisville where 3 interstates meet. The bridge has been needed for years. Hope this doesn't set that back.

[trogdor]

29. One word - TOLLBOOTH

How do you think we used to get things like that built? Set up a joint Kentuckiana Bridge Authority, sell some bonds, and pay them off with tolls. Voila! You have your bridge. New Yorkers can explain.

[Roland99]

39. NYC has tremendously higher volume than here. Cincy was able to do it (on both sides)

[Mabus]

25. I hope the SLT is one of the pork projects that gets cut

I've been part of a battle over a proposed trafficway for over 20 years now. It was started by the local GOP to benefit a segment of their friends and donors, i.e. developers. The developers thought it would be a good idea to turn my town into a bedroom community for Kansas City. Their intent has been to build a trafficway through a wetlands that is adjacent to (and once owned by) Haskell Indian Nations University to facilitate transportation from their new housing developments to KC.

See, HINU began as an Indian Manual Training school in the 1884 to "kill the Indian but save the man" and the school has historically used the wetlands for a variety of reasons. Children were collected (the word used in the Sec. of Interior Reports) from various tribes. The tribes were told that they had to turn over their children to the school or face starvation. My tribe, the Southern Cheyenne-Arapaho were the first full-bloods to be collected and taken to the school. In the first year there were many deaths due to no heating, little food and other factors stemming from moving children to an uncompleted school. The first child to die was six months old. Yes, they were attempting to take children that young away from their parents. The children were forced to work most of the day to complete the buildings and help run the school.

Although practice of our various religions was forbidden the children did it anyway. They used the wetlands as gathering places, away from the prying eyes of the school administrators, to pray, do naming ceremonies and to secretly meet with elders that they were forbidden contact with. I know, my mother and several of my relatives attended HINU in its various incarnations (in addition to being a training school, it has also served as a high school and a junior college) and each of them used the wetlands for religious purposes (there is a medicine wheel, sweat lodges and other religious artifacts out there like prayer cloths). In addition, HINU (in its earliest incarnation) buried children who died at the school in the wetlands. The DOI said in a letter that there may be upward of 1,000+ children buried out there.

Back in the 50's there was a proposal to fill-in the wetlands and put in a golf course. It proved to problematic so that idea was abandoned. Fast forward to the 1980's and the developers. They formed a company and one of the founders got his good friend, Bob Dole, to invest in it (strangely, Bob transferred his holdings in the company to his wife Elizabeth when he ran for president). Within a few years, Dole was proposing to build the trafficway. One article said one of the purposes of the road was connect the golf courses that the company owned.

Anyway, this started out as pork project. We've got a bridge to nowhere because they were trying to defederalize the project by spending all the federal money on the west side of the project so they could use only state funds to finish it, in an attempt to bypass NEPA. This resulted in a court case (one of many) which my side won (http://www.kscourts.org/ca10/cases/1998/11/97-3240.htm). The battle isn't over yet. This particular trafficway case was one of the first test cases under Clinton’s Executive Order on Environmental Justice (EO No. 12898, February, 11, 1984) and, because of the 10th Cir.'s decision part of the federal highway's guidelines dealing with minority communities was rewritten.

They are now proposing to move the trafficway several hundred feet south of their earlier proposed alignment which will really screw-up the wetlands (some of which is still in its pristine condition) and disrupt HINU's education (the wetlands is used by KU, Baker University and HINU for research). In fact, there is a public meeting scheduled here in town on Thursday and comments are due in early Jan.

In short, this project started as a pork project on behalf of a group of developers and their friends (including Dole). They have been stymied by court cases demanding that NEPA be followed. This news of cutting pork is welcome to many of us here locally. It may help us save an historic Indian university.

For more information on the continuing battles check out the Kansas Sierra Club: http://kansas.sierraclub.org/Issues/SLT/SouthLawrenceTrafficway.htm

also see, a "SELECTED CHRONOLOGY OF THE HASKELL-BAKER WETLANDS AND SOUTH LAWRENCE TRAFFICWAY" http://www.larryville.com/articles/SLT/sltchron.htm

[Occulus]

33. .

:wow:

What an interesting story. The place seems steeped in history; it would be a profound shame to lose it.

Are they specifically targeting those wetlands out of spite, or convenience, or what? You obviously know a good deal about this... what's their real motivation to build this in that place, particularly?

ed.: pajamas.

[Mabus]

38. Ignorance, convenience and profit

They didn't/don't care about anything else but their bottomline. They had proposed to bulldoze most of the eastern side of the city to put in the Eastern Parkway (or as we called it "The Eastern Porkway) that would have been a connector route from the SLT and K-10 (state highway). That got stopped too.

There are a lot of little things in the overall SLT proposal. For one thing, because of the increase (and shift) of population to the west side we're having a lot of flooding problems caused by lots of concrete and asphalt on hills, yes, there are hills in Kansas (KU is often referred to as "The Hill" since most of the campus is on Mt. Oread, a limestone outcropping, aka "chalk rock", hence KU's Rock Chalk Chant). But the worst problem involves sewage. The developers were allowed to put in a lot of their subdivisions without paying proper impact fees. Without the impact fees there was nothing in the city budget to properly extend the sewage infrastructure to the new areas. As a result, the sanitation pumping station on the HINU campus gets overworked and is prone to overflow. This is bad enough (fecal matter on the campus) but it does get even worse. The pumping station is next to a small cemetary where over 100 children are buried, including some of my relatives. One of the children buried there is the first child (the 6 month old I mentioned earlier) to die to die. He is among the relatives I have buried there. As you may have guessed, this is a very personal battle for me.

Anyway, the powers that be wanted the trafficway to go through the wetlands because they didn't think there would be any objection. It would primarily affect Haskelll and they just didn't care.

[Blue_Tires]

47. great info

makes me weepy for those heady days when i was at KU:toast: :bounce:

[Mabus]

49. When you were at KU?

And did you ever hang out at Johnny's? the Harbour? The Crossing? any of the Louise's (we're down to 2)? Free State Brewery? Off the Wall Hall/Bottlenecks?

fwiw, a long, long, long time ago, I used to date a bartender at the Crossing. This was back in the day when Jeff and Kelly used to own it. Kelly went off to Norman and opened a place called Bogart's (I dropped in once on my way to a Devo concert). I was there when the Yello Sub was born. My friend Dayne was the first delivery driver. Back in those days I also spent way too much time at the 7th Spirit Club (the building is now called Liberty Hall but I can't for the life of me remember the name of the place when the 7th Spirit was the basement/balcony for 21+). I guess you've figured out that I'm old.

[Mabus]

50. The Opera House

That's the place that had the 7th Spirit Club.

[Blue_Tires]

51. '99-'01

and yes, i remember Free State Brewery, and i'm pretty sure i remember the Crossing...

I was also a frequent customer of Yello Sub and Jimmy John's (i still have my jimmy john's menu sticker on my old trunk, lol)

[Mabus]

53. If you ever saw

a little white ford with "Kansas Union Concesssions" on it zipping around campus, that was probably me. I used to work in the concessions department refilling change machines across campus. I had fourteen machines, mostly in the dorms, but also Summerfield, Green, Strong and Watson. I also picked up nightly receipts at Wescoe cafeteria, Murphy, the Art & Design building and the Burge Union (cafeteria, bookstore and candy counter). So I was all over campus all day long. The kids at the dorms called me "CBH" or change bitch from hell because I used to wake them up in the mornings to transact business.

[Blue_Tires]

54. maybe we did

brush by each other on an occasion or two---i used to be an RA at McCollum

[Mabus]

55. LOL

I was just talking to an old buddy of mine who used to be the director of a scholarship hall. We were talking about Jim Schmidake (sp?). Anyway, I still run into some of the desk assistants from McCollum - Hobble, Munjak, etc. Or maybe those guys were before your time. Heck, I ran into Mel (the UDK delivery guy) the other day.

Small world, huh?

[Miss Chybil]

28. A bill should be A bill and only A bill - no additives, ever.

If bills were pure bills, somebody might actually read them before they voted on them. (Maybe. I know it's a long shot, but it's an idea, anyway.)

[liberal N proud]

31. I will save my cheers for when it actually happens

When the pigs leave Washington then we can call it a fiscal victory.

[Vidar]

32. Time for the "changing of the pork".

[slackmaster]

41. Let the games begin!

:popcorn:

[nevergiveup]

42. What will "the King of Pork" Denny Hastert

do now? I hope he isn't one of those folks who eats more when he is depressed.

[citizen snips]

43. this is good news

all unnecessary spending needs to stop now.