If you don’t ask, the chances of receiving a “yes” are zero.
Hundreds of congressional representatives have their request — earmarks — out in the open as those earmarks returned in February following a 10-year ban.
A Fox News story took a long, hard look at the requests.
How about $1.75 million for improvements – to a Portland, Ore., Japanese garden? And there’s much more that doesn’t really fit into the primary community needs that include jobs and healthcare.
Earmarks – funding requests to improve a local community — have developed a dirty reputation in several instances in recent history.
Ideally, earmarks improve lives, but they also have been linked to corruption.
From a Fox News story:
“Former Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., used earmarks to launder taxpayer money through a nonprofit, while former Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., accepted $2.4 million in bribes for earmarks and even lived on a yacht owned by a defense contractor, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation.”
Republicans and Democrats in Congress are seeking $6 billion in Community Funding Project money, according to Fox News, going with President Joe Biden’s $1.5 trillion fiscal year 2022 budget.
Other requests:
- $436,100 for a “meditation and restorative yoga” program in New Jersey.
- $3.75 million to restore the Waukegan, Ill., Carnegie Museum.
- $2 million in funding for a new art collection at the Brooklyn Museum.
- $2 million for a Pickleball and Fitness Circuit in Orange, Calif.
- $250,000 for a performing arts center that, according to the website of Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., “should be more than a beautifully designed building.”
The Fox analysis covered 326 members of the House: 220 Democrats and 106 Republicans.
Fox reported that this is the first time the total number and cost of their requests has been published.
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