Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Sen. Proxmire obm Golden Fleece Award – Your Tax Dollars at work

Sen. William Proxmire (D.-Wis.) took Sen. Joe “Red Scare” McCarthy’s seat upon McCarthy’s death in 1956 and served until his 1988 retirement. He gave out the Golden Fleece Award to the year’s worst pork barrel project. He died in 2005. From yesterday’s Michael Medved Show, here are a few unofficial nominees from the 2008 budget—signed into law by President George “Conservative” W. Bush (R.-Tex.):
$298,000 – assistance for an Idaho farmer to market specialty potatoes to high-end restaurants
$167,290 – paintings of cabinet officers
$300,000 – skateboard park in California
$3.2 million – spy blimp military didn’t want
$188,000 – research on Maine lobsters
$1 million – tennis court repair in Queens – same courts also received $1 million in 2000
$3900 – Institute of Museum and Library Sciences grant to a Westfield, Ind. library for a Wii, camcorder and games
$22,000 – three nights at a luxury hotel in the Galapagos Islands for five members of Congress for a global warming conference, plus use of an Air Force jet!
$82 million in guaranteed loans by Small Business Administration to 331 liquor stores (quarter-mil per store—those are small businesses?)

The new president’s $1 trillion stimulus package: more of the same?

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