Under the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s “Affordable Health Choices Act,” local governments can apply for “community transformation” grants to build jungle gyms, sidewalks, bicycle paths, and grocery stores, to install streetlights, and to establish new farmers’ markets.

The dollar amount of these grants, and of the total “community transformation” earmark program, is left to the discretion of the Obama administration.

Cities can also apply for “community makeover” grants, which can provide them with up to $10 per resident in taxpayer dollars for “beautifying streets.”

Sen. Tom Coburn, MD (R-OK) sponsored an amendment to the HELP Committee bill that would have prevented any funds it made available from being used “to build, develop, or maintain sidewalks, parks, bike paths, or street lights.” The amendment was defeated by party-line vote.

The “Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” the House of Representatives’ health overhaul legislation, also contains an earmark for these grants. The House bill sets the amount available for their funding at $1.6 billion.

Sources: “Affordable Health Choices Act,” Title III, Subtitle C
HR 3200, § 3151

Starting with the background: AR-01 is one of those districts that is… interesting. It is currently rated as R +8 in the Cook Political Report, but is held by a soi-disant ‘Blue Dog Democrat’: in this case, Marion Berry. Berry has been in that seat since 1997: he won the 2006 election with 69% of the vote; and he was unopposed in 2008.

However, he will not be unopposed this term. Rick Crawford is going to be challenging him; it’s reported that the NRCC is looking at him as part of their planned campaign against selected ‘Blue Dogs’ that did not get challenged in the last election cycle. Rick is a business owner (AG Watch, a radio agricultural network) and military veteran (Army, bomb disposal) with strong roots in the area; he’s pro-life, pro-Tea Party, ready to run on an agricultural platform and is just as exceptionally happy to see the back of Arlen Specter as most of the people reading this, particularly after what Specter did to Kemp’s memory.

The NRCC is taking a challenge to this district seriously, and it’s no surprise why: while Barry has been comfortably winning elections lately - and didn’t have a challenger last cycle - the district itself has shifted on the national level (Gore in ‘00, Bush in ‘04, McCain in ‘08). Plus there’s the entire agricultural subsidy thing, which Berry is notorious for (and, apparently, has set up an arrangement to allow himself to continue to benefit from personally). Then there’s the ongoing neutering of the Blue Dogs in general; as this NRCC radio ad (H/T: ARRA News Service) points out, Barry’s voting for what Pelosi’s proposing.

As noted above, Rick’s website is here, this is his current donation link, and here’s his Facebook page. We will no doubt see more campaign-related items as time goes on.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Hey, who here thinks that the Nation, ThinkProgress, Washington Monthly, Firedoglake, and the rest of the Journolist stenographers are going to reference this?

(For those who can’t see it: it shows Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer bragging about cutting out the very funding that a good number of ostensibly-unrelated Left-bloggers and writers are trying to pin on the GOP, in the person of Senator Susan Collins.  And never mind the fact that the cutting was done as a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to bribe the GOP into signing on to the Democrats’ debt bill; or that it was an incredibly tacky unsuccessful bribe in the first place.  Reality-based thinking is somewhat… flexible for the Online Left.)

Yes, neither did I.  Even the ones that aren’t overtly obediently writing whatever they get told to write are busy with their uncritical willingness to accept Democratic talking points as gospel truth (as if it’s our fault that it takes a Cabinet appointment to make a Democrat pay his taxes).  So it’s almost certainly foolish to expect that the dogs linked above will even dare bark at their masters.  Never a good idea to make those who feed you angry, right?

Anyway, see Michelle Malkin, Don Surber, Protein Wisdom, The Sundries Shack, Legal Insurrection, Q & O, AoSHQ, Hot Air, and my unworthy self for more details of what is proving to be all the evidence that you need that not only is the Left-sphere being fed its points: it’s being fed its points sloppily.  Frankly, any of the above could have done a better hit job, even if you assume (as well you should) that we’d be intending to sabotage it…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Citizens Against Government Waste is announcing the release of the 2008 Pig Book.

The Congressional Pig Book (download in pdf format) is CAGW’s annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. The 2008 Pig Book identified 11,610 projects at a cost of $17.2 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2008. A “pork” project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures. To qualify as pork, a project must meet one of seven criteria that were developed in 1991 by CAGW and the Congressional Porkbusters Coalition.

The latest installment of Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) 18-year exposé of pork-barrel spending includes $3,000,000 for The First Tee; $1,950,000 for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service; and $188,000 for the Lobster Institute in Maine.

In fiscal year 2008, Congress stuffed 11,610 projects (the second highest total ever) into the 12 appropriations bills worth $17.2 billion. The 11,610 projects represent a 337 percent increase over the 2,658 projects in fiscal year 2007. The $17.2 billion is a 30 percent increase over the fiscal year 2007 total of $13.2 billion. Only the Defense and Homeland Security bills included earmarks in fiscal year 2007, so comparisons of other bills are made between fiscal years 2008 and 2006. Total pork identified by CAGW since 1991 adds up to $271 billion.

Visit the CAGW site to read a longer summary of the wasteful, pork spending perpetrated by Congress in 2008.

Read More →

Well, Rep. Flake tried to get the Democrats to vote in favor of ethical behavior again, and again they voted him down. Via Instapundit:

House turns back call for PMA probe

The House on Thursday night turned back another call to investigate the PMA Group, a once-powerful lobbying firm whose offices were recently raided by the FBI and which has close ties to Pennsylvania Rep. John P. Murtha (D).

Twenty-one Democrats, including nine freshmen, voted to proceed with debate on the measure offered by Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake (R) calling for an investigation of the lobbying firm. Most of the Democrats represent fiscally conservative districts.

Read More →

Repeat: “may.” Congress has an impressive talent at somehow managing to find new and exciting ways to spend your money.

Senate bogs down over $410 billion spending bill

WASHINGTON – The Senate, tied up in a fight over a huge omnibus appropriations bill, will have to pass a stopgap spending measure Friday in order to avoid a partial government shutdown.

[snip]

The huge, 1,132-page spending bill awards big increases to domestic programs and is stuffed with pet projects sought by lawmakers in both parties. The measure has an extraordinary reach, wrapping together nine spending bills to fund the annual operating budgets of every Cabinet department except for Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.

The measure was written mostly over the course of last year, before projected deficits quadrupled and Obama’s economic recovery bill left many of the same spending accounts swimming in cash.

And, to the embarrassment of Obama — who promised during last year’s campaign to force Congress to curb its pork-barrel ways — the bill contains 7,991 pet projects totaling $5.5 billion, according to calculations by the GOP staff of the House Appropriations Committee.

Read More →

“Troubled.”  How droll. It’s Pete Visclosky (D, IN-01), by the way. I repeat it because the AP can’t seem to.

Visclosky’s ties to troubled PMA Group run deep.

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky has promised to return money from donors with ties to a troubled lobbying group, but critics say his ties to PMA Group run deep.

The northwest Indiana congressman’s former chief of staff worked as a lobbyist for the firm, and Federal Election Commission reports show he received at least $100,000 in contributions from donors tied to PMA Group between 2006 and 2008. PMA Group was the top donor to Visclosky’s 2008 re-election campaign.

Read More →

From ABC News:

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reports:  The House Appropriations Committee just posted its $410 billion 2009 Omnibus spending bill.  It’s a doozy.  This is the bill that will fund the government’s operations until the end of the fiscal year.  It’s larded with thousands (so many, I can’t count them all yet) of earmarks and adds up an increase in overall discretionary spending of more than 8 percent, the biggest one year increase since 1978 (with the exception of the spending boost after the September 11 attacks).

And this is a bi-partisan feeding frenzy.  Roughly 40 percent of the money for earmarks (i.e. pet projects inserted by individual lawmakers) have been inserted by Republicans.

The Democrats, back before 2006, blamed the GOP constantly for major increases in discretionary spending. Now it is their turn and it turns out they are worse. 60% of increases by them. Wow.

Tonight, Barack Obama will address the nation. His aides, setting the bar extraordinarily high, say the speech will be Reaganesque.

“The president believes very clearly that we have to be honest with the American people about where we are,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“He will,” Gibbs said, “tell the country that we’ve faced … greater challenges than the ones we face now, but we as Americans always meet those challenges. But in the Reaganesque words, there are always better days ahead.”

Will the President dare to take on the issue of discretionary spending? Will he dare to challenge the Democrats?

I suspect this is the perfect opportunity for him to do so. The Dems are giving him a huge gift, i. e. a massive pig with a target on its rib cage for Obama to blow up and take on the corrupting culture of Washington.

This should, in fact, be the bar tonight. If Obama is willing to take this on, we’ll need to give him credit. If he does not, not only will he not have been “honest with the American people,” but he will not really be setting us up to meet any challenges.

You know, like you did here:

…because you just realized that they actually do care when it comes to keeping their existing jobs, huh?

Read More →

TobyToons