Another museum gets the taxpayers to pick up the bill in New York. If other government funded museums are any guide, $1.5 million is the minimum amount taxpayers will be on the hook for since the project is in the very early stages and does not even have an architect attached to it. Neither the City Council member who inserted the earmark in the budget for his district nor the developers of the museum could put a total cost on the project, according to the New York Sun.
The City Council has quietly allocated $1.5 million in capital funding over the next two years that will serve as seed money for a hip-hop museum in the northeast section of the Bronx. The funding allotment was buried in the back of a 200-page listing of capital projects that the council passed as part of the annual budget last week.
At least one City Council member gets it. He criticized the use of public funds for the hip hop museum.
"I'm the biggest LL Cool J fan in the council, but this is not a proper use of taxpayer money," the council's Republican leader, James Oddo of Staten Island, said. He added that he supported a hip-hop museum, but only as a private venture. "If this is such a great idea, then it sells itself," he said.
Indeed. If it is such a great idea, it should sell itself. The Subcommittee held a hearing on publicly funded museums and issued a report of museums that have received earmarks (in federal spending bills) since 2000.
