It doesn’t seem to make any sense. We have used billions of dollars to have people buy new vehicles that will give them a few more miles per gallon of gas and we reduce the money available for the poor and senior citizens to pay winter heating bills. Last year the federal government gave Pennsylvania $308 million for LIHEAP, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program; but this year, the state may get less than half of that money – just $143 million. Last year, a family of four with a maximum household income of $44,443 qualified for help; but this year, the income cutoff will be $33,075. I guess we are fixing those rich people.
One of the reasons this doesn’t make any sense is we have spent billions of dollars on nonsensical stimulus projects while cutting worthwhile programs such as LIHEAP. Cash for Clunkers isn’t the only “Makes ya wanna go huh?” moment. A small border checkpoint located in the town of Whitetail Montana serves about 3 people a day, they will receive $15 million for repairs through the stimulus plan. I see crossing guard shelters in West View that serve more people than that a day. Another checkpoint in Westhope North Dakota serves about 73 people a day and is also set to get $15 million for renovations. That’s 20% of the cut in Pennsylvania’s energy assistance program for two road check points. I would feel better if I thought the expenditures were to improve Homeland Security, but they weren’t, they were earmarks, political favors for elected officials.
In the past, Representative John Murtha obtained earmarks in excess of $200 million dollars for the construction of the Johnstown airport named after him. This year alone Murtha got an $800,000 dollar stimulus fund earmark to repave a runway at the airport because it was a shovel ready project, not because the airport project was worthy of stimulus spending. CNN reported there is an $8 million dollar air traffic radar system installed at the Murtha Airport in 2004 that is not being used or staffed.
Bloomberg recently sued the Federal Reserve to release information on where they sent TARP money. The reason Bloomberg sued was because the Federal Reserve didn’t want to make the information public. The courts have ordered the Federal Reserve to release the information on $700 billion plus in bailout loans by tomorrow, August 31st. Imagine, the FED doesn’t want to tell us where our money was sent because it may hurt businesses. $700 billion would go a long way to fund LIHEAP.
Earmarks do nothing to strengthen the United States or the Commonwealth, they only strengthen politicians. As citizens we have to stand up and take responsibility for these practices. We continue to vote for politicians like this because we believe we benefit in some manner, we don’t. The old adage “we don’t care what he does as long as he is our crook” has got to stop, with us. When it comes to public trust we should care.
