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Not yet 'Age of Aquarius' for taxpayers
By Carrie Budoff Brown
The Politico
October 19, 2007
Having taken a hit in 2005 for supporting an Alaska bridge project that became a symbol of bloated federal spending, Senate Republicans took aim Thursday at two earmarks that they say show Democrats aren’t any more willing to quash pork-barrel politics.
So, “Bridge to Nowhere,” meet Woodstock and Rangel.
The Senate voted to strip $1 million in federal funding for a museum at the site of the 1969 music festival but protected a $2 million earmark for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at The City College of New York.
Let’s start with Woodstock.
Community leaders in upstate New York are building a $100 million museum there and sought money from the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) attempted to defend the earmark Thursday, but he failed, surprising even some critics of the project.
The Senate first rejected a motion to table the amendment, 42-52, shifting the $1 million earmark into the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant program. Five Democrats — Evan Bayh of Indiana, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jim Webb of Virginia — joined the entire Senate Republican Conference, including its reputed king of pork, Ted Stevens of Alaska, to oppose the Woodstock funding.
Senators then approved the amendment on a voice vote.
Schumer, as lonely as Charlie Brown, was the only senator to speak on Woodstock’s behalf.
“This is the largest economic program in one of our poorest counties,” he said, detailing how the rest of the $100 million project would be funded by private sources and the New York state government.
“It is a whole complex devoted to history in America from 1945 to the present," he explained. “If you believe in helping counties, if you believe that every one of us wants the federal government to not just pass broad-brush programs, but to help individual needs in our states ... this is the project.”
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) attached her name to the federal spending request, but Schumer was reportedly the main proponent. She still backed it, voting with Schumer to table the amendment.
Billionaire Alan Gerry, a longtime political donor, is the driver of the project. Days after a Senate committee approved the $1 million request, Gerry and his family contributed $20,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which Schumer heads, and $9,200 to Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to USA Today.
Clinton and Schumer aides said there was no connection.
Republicans, meanwhile, were eager to mock the project. After Schumer argued that Sullivan County, the site of the museum, needs job creation, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) pointed out that the county had a lower unemployment rate than the national average.
“Now, some of you may believe that it would be a neat thing to celebrate Woodstock again, and to do so with a museum,” said Kyl, who led the effort with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). “To the extent that one would argue that it’s only $1 million, therefore symbolic, the answer to that is, yes, it is. But I think the American people want us to begin to make some votes that demonstrate that we care about setting priorities.”
“Maybe." Coburn added, “this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius for taxpayers.”
Not quite yet.
A few hours earlier, the Senate rejected an amendment, 34-61, to eliminate $2 million for a public policy center, conference center and library that will bear Rangel’s name. Republicans dubbed it the “Monument to Me.”
This time, Stevens and 14 other Republicans voted with Democrats to keep the funding. The only Democrats to oppose it were Feingold and Bayh.
So why did Woodstock fall and Rangel survive?
One Senate Republican aide said Schumer didn’t win any converts with his argument for “hippie funding as an economic development tool.”
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