Help Wanted: Alaska Porkbusters!
[Guest post by DRJ]
Glenn Reynolds likes the Georgia Porkbusters! but I think Alaska needs them more:
“STEVENS KEEPS DEFENSE FUNDS FLOWING
$183 MILLION FOR ALASKA: Appropriations bill heading for the president’s pen.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens may no longer be the Senate’s top appropriator or a member of the party in power, but he still draws many millions of dollars in earmarks to Alaska.
The $471 billion defense spending bill that Stevens helped usher through the Senate this year includes more than $183 million in earmarked projects for Alaska. Most of the spending will go to projects on the state’s military bases, including nearly $87 million for training facilities.”
Happy days.
Update: Not to be outdone by his colleagues, Rep. Don Young weighs in with more pork.
— DRJ
You could ask the same question about the Dem. Senators from Hawaii who pack a ton of pork for Hawaii into various appropriation bills.
One difference between the two, however, is the relative merit of Alaska v. Hawaii as the locale of military facilities.
Hawaii has expansive military facilities for all four branches of the military, plus a significant Coast Guard presence. Hawaii also has one of the highest percentages of citizen participation in Guard and Reserve forces.
There is a ton of military spending in Hawaii, but almost all of it is related to Pearl Harbor, Schoefield Barracks (25th Inf. Division), Kaneohe Marine Corps Base (3rd Marine Exped. Force), and Hickam AFB.
Other bases have been closed and consolidated. But the speding on the remaining bases is significant.
wls (a6fede) — 11/11/2007 @ 5:12 pmUnfortunately, Alaskans of both parties consider it their prerogative to have Stevens in the Senate to bring home the pork. The argument — which is not entirely without merit, I concede — is that since Elmer Fed controls so much of Alaska’s land area through national parks and so forth, taxpayers nationwide owe Alaskans something in return.
The problem with that argument, though, is that the laws that turned over so much of Alaska to federal control, were drafted with Stevens’ participation, and passed with his support. By the time my wife and I moved there in 1994 Stevens had forgotten that his role was to represent his constituents’ views to the feds, and was acting more like a proconsul dictating Elmer Fed’s views to his constituents.
I have trouble believing Stevens won’t continue to hold that seat long after he’s dead.
McGehee (a6b60b) — 11/11/2007 @ 6:41 pmthere’s also another bridge he got us to pay for:
http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_11-11-2007/Intelligence_Report#yourmoney
(scroll down past the cows to the article about the boondoggle bridge. But note the comments–the one now showing argues that it’s definitely not a bridge to nowhere, although it doesn’t address the issue of why, if it’s such a good deal, the good people of Anchorage shouldn’t be paying for it themselves)
kishnevi (f8d61b) — 11/11/2007 @ 7:09 pmThe 315 million price for the bridge to nowhere is peanuts compared to the 14.6 billion Boston tunnel that no one complains about. I think the difference is (R) vs (D).
tmac (0c909a) — 11/11/2007 @ 7:32 pmTmac–the Big Dig was so often the subject of MSM coverage, and almost all of it focused on how wasteful it was, that “almost no one complains about” it seems a tad fantastical. Also, I seem to remember some Republicans named Welch and Romney were governors of Massachusetts during the years the Big Dig was being dug (and I suppose still is being dug, given the repair work needed for it already).
kishnevi (f8d61b) — 11/11/2007 @ 9:33 pmSTEVENS or BYRD take your pick of pork kings
krazy kagu (376605) — 11/12/2007 @ 7:54 amSo… we’re fighting wars in the deserts of the Middle East… but we’re spending megamillions on training facilities … in Alaska.
If Ted Stevens were a Senator from Iowa, Des Moines would have a submarine base.
V the K (07425b) — 11/12/2007 @ 11:01 amGet into contect with CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERMENT WASTE and take a look at all that pork spending from the liberals
krazy kagu (6b296a) — 11/14/2007 @ 8:40 am