Pet projects in state to lose out

12/24/2006

A pledge against pork:A Democratic crackdown on projects sought byindividual membersof Congress is putting a moratorium on dozens of programs in Minnesota.


By Rob Hotakainen and Brady Averill,
Star Tribune Washington Bureau
Last update: December 24, 2006 – 12:46 AM


WASHINGTON - In their first big display of fiscal discipline, Democratic leaders in the new Congress are vowing to strip funding for thousands of pet projects for individual lawmakers, putting dozens of programs in Minnesota in jeopardy.

When they take control on Jan. 4, Democrats plan to impose a one-year moratorium on all special budget items known as earmarks, killing those that were tucked into unfinished spending bills before the Republican-led Congress adjourned.

The move will derail an array of projects in the Twin Cities and the state: $50,000 for the Hungry Lil' Readers Club in Minneapolis, $375,000 for after-school programs in St. Paul and $500,000 for an Austin, Minn., program that helps neglected children with emotional problems, among many others.

Overall, the House and Senate spending bills for education and social services had about $1 billion in earmarks. Hundreds of millions more lay in other spending bills for similar programs.

As Congress prepares to consider another $100 billion to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some fear that the belt-tightening is falling disproportionately on small groups and organizations.

"If what's happening with these earmarks is that it's all the little things that are getting cut, it's not like we're all in it together," said Lina Belar, a project manager with the History Museum of East Otter Tail County in Perham, Minn.

Museum officials have received a call from the office of Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., telling them that $150,000 for a new veterans exhibit is now on the chopping block.

But in her e-mail newsletter, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., an incoming member of the House Appropriations Committee, said the moratorium will help "put an end to the abuses that have harmed the credibility of Congress."

Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., the incoming chairman of the House Transportation Committee, will have from 25 to 30 projects affected by the moratorium and is disappointed they won't be funded, according to Mary Kerr, his spokeswoman. Some affect his district, such as a paving project between Bigfork and Effie, while others affect the state as a whole, such as funding for a criminal justice information system for the Department of Public Safety.

Oberstar's office has broken the news to Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, telling it that a $250,000 earmark to help 16- to 21-year-olds in Duluth was on hold. The program runs on a $350,000 budget, and congressional funding would have gone toward six furnished apartments and street programs, said Bill Vanderwall, vice president of family services.

The moratorium is also hitting the Jewish Family and Children's Service of Minneapolis, which was in line to get $500,000 for two projects. The biggest chunk would have helped fund a nondenominational program that matches congregations with nurses who help isolated people by arranging volunteers to deliver meals and take them to appointments.

The moratorium hits similar projects across the nation: $250,000 for a Kansas City domestic violence shelter's effort to expand a school-based program to counter violence; $250,000 to expand services to the vision-impaired in Alaska; $250,000 for Best Buddies International in Miami to help provide friendships and jobs for the mentally retarded.

Earmarks, sometimes derisively called "pork" projects, are special appropriations pushed by individual members of Congress that pay for everything from social programs to hospital improvements to road construction to research.

They've long been popular with Republicans and Democrats alike, but they became a big issue in the 2006 congressional campaigns after Congress approved a $452 million earmark for two bridges in Alaska and a scheme that landed former Republican Rep. Duke Cunningham of California in prison after he accepted more than $2 million in bribes.

In Minnesota last fiscal year, some 80 projects received $70 million, according to the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. Earlier this month, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-Va., and Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the incoming chairmen of the Senate and House appropriations committees, said the moratorium will be in effect "until a reformed process is put in place" and that earmarks included in this year's bills will be eligible for consideration in 2008.

"Republicans have spent years handing out billions upon billions of dollars in tax cuts to millionaires while shortchanging our national priorities," Obey said. "It is going to take us years to get back on track."

The moratorium has the backing of President Bush, who called it "a good start" toward imposing fiscal discipline. He said the number of the special appropriations has exploded in recent years, from about 3,000 in 1996 to 13,000 in 2006.

But some say earmarks have greatly helped their constituents, and they fear the new Congress might be going too far.

"The danger now is that Congress could swing from one extreme to the other, leaving important projects without much-needed funding," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn. He said that what's needed most is "injecting more sunlight into the process."

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