Every wonder just how often the Akron area really hits the jackpot when it comes to our congressional delegation getting the job done? In this era of earmarks as a dirty word you might be surprised to see what passes for pork in the eyes of the beholders.
The Office of Management and Budget is the behemoth that tracks Uncle Sam's spending -- no small task. Part of that spending is "earmarks", and we've been getting an earful lately of these skillfully-added perks to laws about one issue but weighed down by stuff for local congressional reps in what can charitably be described as political extortion: Mr. President, sign the bill that has the greater good and ignore all the stuff we've added to it, or else.
In Washington this extortion usually has a nicer phrasing: "working hard for you," usually part of an incumbency's campaign marketing materials.
It is instructive to note OMB's listing for Ohio totalling $161,403,000.00 for 219 projects undertaken on our behalf. This web listing will take some time to bore into since it separates each earmark according to department, then program, but it is an instructive use of time to see that what we consider "getting our share" from Washington can easily be tagged "nothing but pork" by folks who don't live here.
Examples of earmarks that helped Akron: money flowing the Akron schools for a math and science learning center ($239,000 Sutton/Voinovich); the University of Akron for the STEM program ($143,000 Sutton/Ryan); Kent State getting money for "equipment and technology" for the Tuscarawas campus ($143,000 Space); Canton Symphony Orchestra for teacher training and an Art collaboration ($95,000 Regula).
That's just a glance at the Education category's 16 projects worth over $3 million dollars; we're just scraping the surface, not even plumbing the 44 projects worth over $11 million from Health and Human Services or the whopping $76.6 million for 37 projects from the U.S. Corps of Engineers, one of the grandest of agencies to order to work on our behalf. They rack up the construction projects in a big way because that's what the Corps does, and in 2008 it included maintenance we could see while driving over the Berlin Lake Reservoir as well as projects in Massillon (this $144,000 doesn't even have a sponsor listed nor an explanation of the project) and Mosquito Lake.
Let it be said every politician gives a damn when it comes to dams.
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