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Flower Power Fades: Senate Cuts Woodstock Earmark
By David Rogers
Wall Street Journal
October 19, 2007
The Senate voted to strip out a $1 million earmark for the Museum at Bethel Woods in New York, better known as the Woodstock museum thanks to the iconic 1960s music festival.
“Maybe this is the dawn of the Age of Aquarius for taxpayers,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who engineered the upset at the expense of two of Washington’s most powerful Democrats: New York Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton.
The skirmish came as the Senate debated a giant annual spending bill funding the departments of Education, Labor and Health and Human Services. Coburn wrote his amendment so that Woodstock’s loss will be a net gain for maternal and child health grants, helping him win over five Democrats on the crucial 52-42 vote.
The museum, scheduled to open next year, is part of a larger performing arts development in the Catskills community. So far, it has succeeded largely with private and state funds, and the $1 million would have been a small part of the larger budget. But the New York senators have backed the expenditure as a way to promote tourism in the region. “This is one of the most important economic development projects for Sullivan County, one of the poorest counties in New York state,” said Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon. “It was long sought after by the entire community.”
But the Woodstock history and Clinton’s presidential campaign made it an easy target for Republicans.
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