Ted Stevens didn't get his bridge to nowhere but he did get a ferry

[liberal N proud]

Congress Gives Alaska "Ferry To Nowhere"

Washington Post: Senator Secures $20M Earmark For "Expeditionary Craft" To Rural Peninsula



Twice in the past two years, Alaska lawmakers were forced to abandon plans to build two "bridges to nowhere" costing hundreds of millions of dollars after Congress was embarrassed by public complaints over earmarks hidden in annual spending bills.

This year, Alaska Republicans Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens found another way to move cash to their state: Stevens secured more than $20 million for an "expeditionary craft" that will connect Anchorage with the windblown rural peninsula of Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

Now what Alaska has, budget watchdogs contend, is a ferry to nowhere.

<snip>

The $555 billion annual "omnibus" spending bill approved by Congress this week and the $459 billion defense bill passed last month collectively contain more than 11,000 earmarks, despite Democrats' vow to use their first year in the majority to slash the number of such pet projects.

The earmark tally did come down, budget watchdogs said, but the audacity of the requests is little reduced. Among routine requests for roads and dams, Taxpayers for Common Sense found $100,000 for signage in Los Angeles's fashion district, $9 million for "rural domestic preparedness" in Kentucky and $250,000 for a wine and culinary center in Prosser, Wash.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/21/politics/washingtonpost/main3638116.shtml

[Lint Head]

1. He needs a prison bus to the big house.

:dem:

[Initech]

3. He doesn't need to take the prison bus. He can take the series of tubes.

[Selatius]

2. Is there a magic bullet solution to abusive earmarks? Or are we looking at the never-ending...

war on greed here? The kind of war that lasts forever?

[Parche]

4. Where IS Marsha Blackburn

She needs to look at this, and shut her F-IN Mouth........:rofl: :hi:
She was ranting on earmarks from the Democrats this week.....