October 21, 2005

82 Porkers

82 porkers in the Senate voted to keep the funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska by a vote of 82-15. Senator Ted Stevens took it personal (who I mentioned before after his son got $500,000 in Federal funds to paint a jet to look like a Salmon).

In a clash of generations and political philosophy, 37-year Senate veteran Ted Stevens of Alaska told a freshman colleague that he would resign and "be taken out of here on a stretcher" if the Senate killed funding for two Alaskan bridges.

"It is an offense, a threat to every person in my state," the 81-year-old Stevens said of the proposal by fellow Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to eliminate some $450 million in federal funds for Alaskan bridges and shift $75 million to a Louisiana bridge damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

By the way...I think that Senator Stevens is a good example showing that we need to seriously look at term limits again. Also, included in that number of 82 porkers are both Senators Lamar Alexander and Bill Frist.

More...

The Coburn amendment would have blocked funding for a $223 million bridge to a town in Alaska with a population of 50 people. At $4.46 million per person, the cost of the bridge alone would be enough to buy every island resident their own personal Lear jet. The Coburn amendment also would have blocked funding for a $229 million bridge that would connect Anchorage, Alaska to hundreds of square miles of unpopulated wetlands.

The Coburn amendment would have then diverted $125 million in savings from those projects to repair the Interstate 10 Twin Spans Bridge in Louisiana, a 5.4 mile stretch of I-10 over Lake Pontchartrain which connects New Orleans with the city of Slidell. The Twin Spans serve as a major route into New Orleans for interstate commerce and working commuters.

Dr. Coburn offered another amendment to block funding for three special projects; $200,000 for an animal facility in Westerly, Rhode Island; $500,000 for a sculpture park in Seattle; and $950,000 for a parking facility for a private museum in Omaha, Nebraska. The Senate voted to table, or kill, the amendment by a vote of 13 to 86.

So...why did Americans vote to put Republicans in the majority again?

Mark Tapscott has been doing an excellent job covering this. As Tapscott said, "This speaks volumes about why so little actual conservative reform has been achieved since 1994. They talk the talk but they don't walk it." Ah-yep.

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