The Year In Earmarks

Which Lawmakers’ Pet Projects Top The List For Wasting The Most Of Taxpayer Money?

(CBS)  Politicians have made careers out of pledging to cut waste, but in 2007 it was clear the mind may be willing but the body politic is weak, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

CBS News' "Follow the Money" reports looked at billions of dollars in waste and earmarks from Congress. Earmarks are grants of money without the normal public review.

There was $146 million wasted by federal workers who broke the rules and upgraded themselves on flights, $22 million dollars in missing equipment at the CDC. And the Capitol Visitors Center, $400 million bucks over budget.

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones got touchy when we asked about her $1 million earmark to Sherwin Williams - a paint company in her home district.

Attkisson approached her on the Hill, saying: “I've been asking for an interview.”

“Don't play me like that,” Tubbs Jones said, grabbing Attkisson’s wrist.

“Please take your hands off me,” Attkisson said.

“I'm not gonna take, I didn't mean any offense,” Tubbs Jones said. “OK?”

Rep. Ralph Regula, D-Ohio, ducked questions about his earmarks for his wife's library, where his daughter is a paid director.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., wouldn't talk about his $2 million earmark for a library and center named after himself.

“Was it his requirement that his name be on the center?” Attkisson asked Mary Lou Edmondson, of the City College of New York.

“I don’t think we would ever think of not having his name on the center if we had his papers,” Edmondson said.

So he wanted his name on the center?

“I, uh…ha,” Edmondson said.

The USDA spent your tax dollars sending agents on repeated trips to Key West - to protect Ernest Hemingway's cats, which frankly don't seem to need protection.

And it's Christmas all year at NASA where CBS News discovered they spend $4 million annually on fancy four-day parties to honor employees and contractors.

The year could be summed up by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., who defended spending $11 million on a state-of-the-art building solely to benefit the grape and wine industry calling it a "research" earmark - a practice that's grown very popular in Congress.

“Do you have any idea what the total number of research earmarks was last year?”Attkisson asked him.

“Offhand, I don’t know what the total number is,” he said.

It’s $2.6 billion.

“Research earmarks?” Hinchey said. “Two-point-six billion is not nearly enough.”

In the end, what was the final damage? In 2007, we examined more than $2.5 billion in earmarks, on top of more than $21 billion dollars in other spending and waste.

It's a good thing Congress is out on holiday - they must be tired after spending so much of your money.

We have an answer for these cash hogs - it''s running them out of office! When is their constituents going to smarten up? Don''t they realize it is their tax monies they hate paying that these slobs are spending. Cutting them out of the loop saves monies and increases the chances for tax reductions. It''s who we elect. They have to be frugal or they must know we will impeach them. They get elected and nest in their jobs because of the public apathy. How can we get the public to smarten up and dump these slobs spending this money???

[likeitis5050]

How is this news? They can all justify their greed...it''s called helping the people who put them in office. Ron Paul doesn''t apologize...he plainly states he''s looking out for his voters. They all are. Doesn''t matter that everyone has to pay for their pet projects...they need to stay in office. All of them slam any and all others for excessive spending and boast about having a solution to the high taxes...except where THEY are concerned. Their ear marks are not frivolous or excessive...no, not if it gets them elected again and again. Hypocrites. They can''t do anything else but run for office. They can and will do anything it takes to win an election. These are the people who represent all of us. Take care of #1 and to he11 with everyone else. Bravo.

[rowdytexan2]

I don''t mind funding and promoting libraries for reading purposes...but building libraries to house somebody''s freaking papers and glorify their name should not be allowed.

We have people in this nation going hungry, and without health care, and that need help with education costs. Our road and bridge infrastructure is being ignored, and has become unsafe.

And somebody needs a library with their name on it to house their scraps of paper???

[homespunlady]

Don''t forget today''s latest "earmark" defended by George Bush - his pocket VETO of HELP for OUR TROOPS in order to PROTECT the REGIME of SADDAM HUSSEIN - the guy we supposedly went to WAR over and NOW is being PROTECTED by GEORGE - AFTER HE WAS stripped of his country, his people bombed and shot by the hundreds of thousands and after capture graphically HUNG. WHY would George NOW change his tune??

What''s he hiding that would cause him to VETO about 600 BILLION over a comparatively SMALL 25 Billion stashed in US banks??

[why_not_nar]

Sharyl,
Thank you, and ''I got it''.
You have entered into an area of jouralism whose apparent goal is to ''bring about change''.
Okay.

Let''s do that. You have desribed the problem.

I couldn''t agree more.

Now what is the next step toward finding a solution.

Or is getting ''ratings'' the solution in or of itself?

[mbburch06]

$25 billion isn''t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to government waste. When Congress is allowed to spend $2.7 trillion per year, waste is inevitable. While Democrats are slightly worse with this kind of thing, both parties are to blame, and simply replacing the current clowns in Congress with different clowns is not the solution.

This is exactly why there is so much corruption in politics. With that kind of money being spent, there are huge incentives to bribe or otherwise influence the decisions that Congressmen make.

We need a President and a Supreme Court that will contain the powers of Congress to only those authorized in the Constitution. Until that happens nothing will change.

[slpdisk]

Not to mention the investigation on old Donald Duck rumsfeld that was headed by Senator Cynthia McKinney of the missing 2.3 trillion at the pentagon, and then 9/11 so conveniently took our attention off that one. Hey Mr. Rumsfeld take the grandkids to Chucky Cheese and don''t worry us taxpayers will take care of the bill.

[pelagon]

Want to see something you might not know about? Go to www.letsroll911.org
and scroll down to the picture of the jet going into the WTC on 9/11 with the orange spot on the wall next to the jet. What is that going into the wall with the jet?

[homespunlady]

Posted by leafsntrees at 08:00 PM : Dec 29, 2007

??? I don''t get what you''re trying to say. Please take your meds and clarify your comments.

[homespunlady]

I see the article on George''s VETO of the DEFENSE BILL got dropped REALLY fast.

Oh well, back to being BORED TO SLEEP by FLUFF PIECES like this one.

[pastdue1]

Paid lackeys. No wonder their reputations are in the pits. If you want a big paycheck, be a congressman.
Finding an honest politician is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack. And where is their oversight on the spending of government agencies? The news does the oversight and then they jump on the bandwagon. They have nothing to be proud of.
Before we re elect anyone , their spending history should be looked into.

[colonieny]

Why not stop all earmarks. We could use that same money for free tuition for all students instead !
Or it could go a long way for health care if you have a catastrophic illness....

[colonieny]

Question: Could CBS break down by Democrats and Republicans. It seems that ALL the waste is from the Democrats !

[bluehalfmoon]

The 4 top Porkers, Yes you guessed it are drum roll please REPUBLICANS..........

HOUSE:

John Murtha, D-Pa., $161.9 million.

C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., $161.1 million.

Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., $136.8 million.

SENATE:

Thad Cochran, R-Miss., $773.6 million.

Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, $501.9 million.

Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., $429.5 million.

Republicans need to take a look at their own party and Wise Up!

[malomaboy06]

I think it is worthy of note that earmarks are a way of channeling funds slightly beneath the radar. There is a more legal way of doing it that doens''t rely on any form of deception. Every year, we seem to pull these bills from the dregs of Capital Hill. This is where all our tax dollars are going.

Not to say that nothing good ever comes from these bills, but there is a slightly more legitimate way of doing it.