Trent Duffy calls Bush-approved $24 billion in Pork "pretty modest"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Road Bill Reflects The Power Of Pork
White House Drops Effort to Rein In Hill

By Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 11, 2005; A01

Three years ago, President Bush went to war against congressional pork. His official 2003 budget even featured a color photo of a wind-powered ice sled -- an example of the pet projects and alleged boondoggles he said he would no longer tolerate. Yesterday, Bush effectively signed a cease-fire -- critics called it more like a surrender -- in his war on pork. He signed into law a $286 billion transportation measure that contains a record 6,371 pet projects inserted by members of Congress from both parties.

Bush brushed aside pleas from taxpayer groups to veto the bill, which exceeded the $284 billion limit that he had vowed not to cross. The vast majority of the measure is geared toward road construction and public transit projects, with the money doled out over five years according to formulas designed to provide state and local governments considerable flexibility, Transportation Department officials said.

But hundreds of millions of dollars will be channeled to programs that critics say have nothing to do with improving congestion or efficiency: $2.3 million for the beautification of the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California; $6 million for graffiti elimination in New York; nearly $4 million on the National Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio, and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.; $2.4 million on a Red River National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Louisiana; and $1.2 million to install lighting and steps and to equip an interpretative facility at the Blue Ridge Music Center, to name a few.

"There are nearly 6,500 member-requested projects worth more than $24 billion, nearly nine percent of the total spending," executives from six taxpayer and conservative groups complained in a letter to Bush urging that he use his veto pen for the first time. They noted that Reagan vetoed a transportation bill in 1987 because there were 152 such special requests, known in the parlance of congressional budgeting as "earmarks." White House spokesman Trent Duffy replied that Bush pressured Congress to shave billions of dollars off the bill, and he said spending is "pretty modest" when spread out over five years. The transportation bill, at $57 billion a year, is a fraction of Medicare's $265 billion. Besides, Duffy said, "the president has to work with the Congress."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081000223_pf.html

[rodeodance]

1. compared to 200 billion for an unjust war he is prob. right.