Recently in Earmarks Category
- Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
- Not specifically authorized;
- Not competitively awarded;
- Not requested by the President;
- Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
- Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
- Serves only a local or special interest.
For example, one earmark by Sen. Patti Murray (D-WA) for a heads-up display used by Army troops was for a device that had lost an Army bid. Most of those devices are stored in a warehouse and will never be used. Another of her earmarks was for a patrol boat the Navy and Coast Guard didn't want, and that they gave away almost immediately after it was received.
Rep. David Wu (D-OR-1) got an earmark for a local clothing manufacturer for T-shirts for the Marine Corps. The shirts are synthetic fabric which burns and melts easily, and are banned in combat.
The Times' was able to correlate all of Murray and Wu's earmarks with significant campaign contributions from officials for the earmark recipients' companies. Their database covers all of Congress, including Randy Kuhl.
The Times' effort to compile this database and track down worthless earmarks was documented in a recent episode of Bill Moyers Journal, which can be viewed online. If you have any interest in journalism or earmarking, take 20 minutes and watch it online -- it's well worth the effort. Also worth a read is the summary story by the main Times' reporter, David Heath.
First, she's published her daily schedule on her website. This might seem like a small thing, but she's one of a half-dozen members (and two senators) who do so.
Second, she's tried to increase the number of grant applications in her district. According to a Albany Times-Union story, she's had her staff launch a "grants central" section of her website to help connect constituents with available federal grants. As I've explained here earlier, the grant process is far more transparent than earmarks, since it requires that grant applicants meet a set of requirements mandated by law and supervised by non-political federal appointees.
These are two simple, non-partisan, good government reforms. The 29th deserves the same level of transparency from its representative.
(Thanks to the Albany Project for posting about the Times-Union story.)
Rep. Kuhl's Elmira College earmark in the House Labor and HHS bill got more play in the Elmira-Star Gazette today. That earmark, which the S-G says was $200K, but an independent watchdog says was $100K, was part of a bill that passed in July without Randy Kuhl's vote. The conference report of the same bill, which is 853 pages of unsearchable text, passed yesterday with Kuhl's vote. Since Eric Massa has been making much of Kuhl's habit of voting against bills that contain his earmarks, Kuhl can now claim that he did actually vote for the bill in its final form.
Part one of my earmarks series was a basic introduction to earmarks. In part two of my series on earmarks, I want to show how earmarks shortchange New Yorkers, and how earmarks directed to small, red states come out of our pockets.
Last year, I wrote a piece that pointed out the general inequity in redistribution of tax dollars. In 2004, New York was 43rd in the ranking of states receiving money back from the federal government. For every dollar of taxes paid in to the Federal Government, New York got 79 cents back. My piece also presented a couple of examples of deluxe airports in North Dakota financed in large part by homeland security money. In 2004, North Dakota received $1.73 for every dollar sent to Washington, more than twice New York's share.
The "dollars back" picture is
for overall federal funding. The picture for earmarks is even more
grim. The chart at right is from the
Many Eyes project. The size of the dots indicate the per-capita
amount of earmark money received by each state in 2005. The big fat
dot is Alaska, which received a stunning $1,012 per person in
earmarks. North Dakota's no Alaska, but its two senators and one
representative managed to wrangle $135 per person. You might need to
get out a magnifying glass to see New York's paltry $29 per person --
we're the little orange dot at the right.
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle has a story on the earmark totals for five area Members of Congress. Randy Kuhl ranked last in the list. At the top of the list, Jim Walsh (NY-25) had $35 million in earmarks compared to Kuhl's almost $10 million. According to my tally, $1.2 million of Kuhl's total is attributed jointly to Kuhl and Walsh.
In other news, I missed a story about Massa and the DCCC which appeared earlier in this week's City Newspaper.
Both candidates in the 29th are trying to make pork a major issue in the 2008 race. Most of Randy Kuhl's press releases tout the arrival of federal money in the district. Eric Massa has made Kuhl's habit of voting against bills that contain his earmarks a frequent topic of his press conferences and press releases. Though the term "pork" gets thrown around frequently, there's not a lot of discussion of the nitty-gritty details of federal money entering the district. Today, in the first of a multi-part series on pork, I'll examine the difference between a grant and an earmark.
The House finally adjourned for its August recess this morning a little after 1 A.M. During the last 14-hour session, Randy Kuhl voted against the Energy Bill as well as against a bill that would have extended and increased tax incentives for the use of renewable energy. Both of those bills passed the House.
Kuhl voted for an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which included a 6-month sunset provision. This bill was passed after the House failed to pass a bill less to the Bush Administration's liking on Friday. Kuhl voted against that bill. The AP has a pretty good story about the new FISA provisions.
Finally Kuhl, and almost everyone else in the House, voted for the Defense appropriation, which includes $6 million in his earmarks.
The House was scheduled to adjourn yesterday for the August recess, but a dust-up on the House floor Thursday night, among other delays, has the House at work today.
Randy Kuhl has been "Mr. No" for the past week. Kuhl did not support any of the major appropriation legislation that reached the floor this week, which included:
- Increases in funding for the Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act This bill would have added $30 billion in funding to add 3 million more children to the S-CHIP program, which is a joint state-federal plan to insure children whose parents have incomes above the poverty line. The bill is funded in part by an increase in the tax on tobacco.
- The appropriation bill for the Department of Agriculture, FDA and related agencies. Kuhl voted "present" on this bill, since it was part of the dispute mentioned above. Most Republicans were absent for the vote. Even though Kuhl serves on the Agriculture committee, he had no earmarks in the bill.
Both appropriation bills passed the House, though the S-CHIP authorization is under veto threat from the President. Kuhl also voted against two other national-security related bills. The first was a bill mandating that active duty, guard and reserve troops will have a home rotation equal to the amount of time they are on duty in Afghanistan or Iraq. The final bill that Kuhl opposed this week was the reauthorization of the FISA surveillance program. That bill failed by a few votes.
Randy Kuhl voted for the Farm Bill, which included a significant increase in funding for specialty crops. McClatchy has a good Q&A on the bill here. The bill contained no earmarks.
Kuhl voted against the HUD and Transportation appropriation bill, H R 3074. That bill included four of his earmarks, worth more than $600,000.
Update: Missed one: Kuhl also had an $800K earmark for Alfred State in the Commerce, Justice and Science appropriation, H R 3093, which he voted against.