Hawaii is the top per capita state this year.... The vast majority of the $412.2 million for Hawaii came because [Hawaii senator] Inouye, now the chairman of the Senate *Appropriations* Committee, sponsored or co-sponsored the earmarks.
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
"$412.2 million?" .... sure doesn't sound like very much, does it. Especially in light that Obama is the President and CEO. Take for example the $787 Billion stimulus package Obama signed into law, or for that matter, the TARP bailout lavished upon the banks. By that metric, da $412.2 million Hawaii earmark seem a paltry sum in comparison. Actually, pork barrel earmarks amount to only 1 percent of the total federal budget, and since some of the same money would have been allocated to the individual states anyways, earmarks don't amount to much percentage wise. Don't get me wrong, if I stumbled upon a million dollars, not a billion, stashed in an abandoned federal building, I would.
6 comments:
Does the $412M include military construction projects in the Defense bill?
Nate- are you serious? You guys get a pass. Actually, I don't know for sure. But our nation's most expensive highway (mile for mile) to the Kaneohe Marine station, I'm sure "wasn't" accrued to Hawaii earmarks.
Yup. Eisenhower Defense Interstate Highway System funded. Remember the original plans? H-1 to connect the Army National Guard at the back of Diamond Head to Pearl Harbor/Hickam and on to Barber's Point. H-2 to connect Schofield Barracks. And H-3 to connect Kaneohe. Essentially built to facilitate troop deployments.
Nate- highways are a better value than $20,000 procured for a single laptop, etc. that the defense industry are known to splurge on.
There is a lot of waste. We were just switched to Windows Vista from XP. And we've been told in maybe 6 months we're going to switch to Windows 7. This is Army wide. Whathas Microsoft got on the procurement folks?
Nate- even at bulk rate per computer, that must total huge. Then again, if the army doesn't spend spare money lying around on something or the other, somebody gets scolded in the chain of command.
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