Roll Out the Barrel

Randy Kuhl's office has announced millions of dollars of grants in the last month (here, here, here and here).  These are routine grants, which probably would have happened no matter who was serving in the 29th.

The big splash or "October surprise" in this district would be an announcement concerning the fate of the Canandaigua VA Hospital.  This facility has been recommended for downsizing [pdf], and has been the subject of much media attention in the past couple of years.

When President Bush visited the 29th this Spring, he spent most of his time in Canandaigua, though he didn't tour the hospital.  A Kuhl announcement that the hospital would be spared would be a political trifecta:  It would show that Randy's got some mojo in DC, that there's some upside to his closeness with Bush, and that Eric Massa isn't the only candidate deeply concerned about veterans.

Update:  A full list of the recent grants is now available on Kuhl's official page.

Comments

I've recently started following this race and I saw that Mr. Massa has sworn off all "pork barrel" money like the ones you speak of. If that's the case, and he wins, the 29th can forget any grant or project with the help of federal money coming in. How is that supposed to help the people in the district?

What makes you think this is "pork"? These are grants, which are not the same thing as earmarks.

American44, I realize there are different definition of "Pork Barrel" funding, which at its broadest, is a generic term for funding of specific district projects.

"Earmarks", as TomT has pointed out, are a special case of pork barrel projects. These grants aren't earmarks, as far as I know.

Perhaps you're confusing Massa's swearing off of donations from large PACS, which is completely different.

Or maybe you're referring to his criticism of pork-barrel homeland security projects. That's also different.

If you can point me to a URL where Massa has sworn off all pork barrel projects, I'd love to see it. In fact, I've heard him criticize Kuhl for the fact that New York only gets 87 cents of tax money for every dollar we send to Washington. That seems like the opposite of swearing off generic pork barrel projects.