Congressman Kucinich Gets His Earmark!!

[Bill Call]

He has won approval for $1.225 million for Cuyahoga County Airport and $450,000 for a forensic lab in Toledo. The airport is in Congressmen Latourete’s district. Toledo is in Nancy Kaptur’s district. Could someone PLEASE let him know where his district is?

Earmarking is a strange word. See this for derivation and meaning:

http://www.babylon.com/definition/earmark/English

[Jim DeVito]

Bill, Where did you read this at? Please provide the source for your statement.

[Bill Call]

Please provide the source for your statement.

Sources!! Sources??? I don't need no stinkin sources!!!

OK, just this once. But from now on just take my word for whatever it is I say. Just pretend I'm the New York Times. The mere fact that I have written it is source enough!

http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2009/ ... appro.html

I am not one of those who will cheer the demise of the newspaper industry. The industry provides a lot of leg work for pretend journalists.

[Jim DeVito]

Hmm thanks Bill. I apologize I will from here on out blindly follow your word.

That is interesting. Me thinks there should be some "build us a new bridge before it kills us all" money in there.

[Bill Call]

Hmm thanks Bill. I apologize I will from here on out blindly follow your word.

That is interesting. Me thinks there should be some "build us a new bridge before it kills us all" money in there.

Just between you and me I forgot the source link in the first post.

As to the "build us a new bridge before it kills us all": The governor wants to use "stimulus" money to pay for part of innerbelt bridge replacement. That is a bad idea. The State is obligated to build that bridge with our without stimulus money and promised to do so long before there was any stimulus money.

If they take a portion of Northeast Ohio's share of the stimulus funds to pay for the innerbelt bridge that will reduce our total share of infrastructure spending.

It is a bad idea that will do great damage to this area. Translation: That's what is going to happen.

[sharon kinsella]

Bill Call is Lakewood's own Walter Crankite (intentional spelling).

[ryan costa]

the earmarks are a very small portion of the budget.

they are the little favors all congressmen agree to do each other for the sake of agreeing to cooperating on bigger issues. Monarchs of the past built giant temples and palaces. democracies built a network of bridges, swimming pools, and labs for scientists to work on something or other.

larger portions of the budget are unassailable from direct criticism without being branded a communist or a liberal or a warhawk or a unionist or a dissident.

AIG got 120 billion bailout for literally not producing anything and no one batted an eye.

it is galling that the 'stimulus package receives so much more criticism -or even scrutiny - than the bailouts or invade-iraq

[Diane Helbig]

Ryan,
It receives criticism for two reasons (IMHO)
1. the dems were going to change the way washington runs
2. when we are in such dire straits (sp) and the money is being borrowed,etc, the logical mind would say there is no place in a recovery bill for earmarks.

In my thoughts, why don't they focus on solving the problem and then when things are better they can go back to earmarks if they so choose.

And, please, before you bring up the insanity of the republican spending again - as my mother said, two wrongs don't make a right.

[ryan costa]

the earmarks are a conventional level of "stimulus". their size is relatively modest. it is reported 40 percent of 2009 earmarks are even for/from Republican congressmen. I do not know how to distinguish them from conventional federal spending: it is implied that sometimes the spending isn't so bogged down in expensive regulations and monitoring.

they can be for good projects or un-good projects. they can be spent efficiently, or less than efficiently. Last year Earmarks were about 16.502 billion dollars.

http://earmarks.omb.gov/resources/stati ... ummary.pdf

that's about 2 or 3 extra weeks in Iraq plus one Stealth Bomber. The Iraq campaign is due to add up to over 2 trillion dollars. Do you feel mislead or chagrined? Considering the best case scenario for Iraq is that it will be about as stable as it was in 1989 when we're done spending our 2 trillion dollars there?

[Bill Call]

The City of Lakewood has applied for about $70 million in stimulus money.

While there are funding formulas that may favor Lakewood's application over Bay Village's application ultimately the dispersal of funds will be a political decision.

It would be helpful if Congressman Kucinich knew what cities were in his district.