The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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May 25, 2006

Our View – Earmarks eating up Katrina aid

If you didn’t like the idea of influential members of Congress securing pet projects that help line the pockets of some special interest, you’ll hate the latest twist an the inequities of earmarks.

Seems now some earmarks going to Hurricane Katrina-ravaged areas of the Gulf Coast are going to benefit corporations instead of helping poor people rebuild their modest homes.

The Washington Post reports that despite a $109 billion disaster relief-Iraq War spending bill, elderly folks in Biloxi, Mississippi will be on the short end of any federal disaster aid because they are either outside floodzones or there’s not enough money to go around.

At the same time, defense contractor Northrup Grumman Corp. is slated to receive $140 million, thanks to its friend, Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, who set up a nice earmark for the corporation to rebuild its shipyard.

Granted, that company will be able to provide jobs and help bolster the economy, but so far there is little assistance for the destitute who just need a decent roof over their heads.

Biloxi City Councilman Bill Stallworth sees it first hand. He told the Post: “What they’re saying to Northrop Grumman is ‘Here — here’s $140 million. Go get yourself back together. What we’re saying is, ‘Look, people, we need more money to get people back in their homes. We need housing. Volunteers can’t do it all.’”

Stallworth says he doesn’t even need that much money. If he and his group of volunteers could just get several licensed plumbers and electricians, they could rebuild 100 homes a month instead of 10.

The Grumman money is part of a $109 billion bill to fund recovery from Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. Other Katrina related items in the bill include: $38 million to repair the historic home of Jefferson Davis, leader of the confederacy; $176 million for a military retirement home in Gulfport; and $700 million to buy an 80-mile stretch of railroad to build a new highway.

That project, dubbed “railroad to nowhere,” was an earmark inserted by Lott and Mississippi’s other senator Thad Cochran, a Republican who chairs the Appropriations Committee. It would reroute a train line damaged by Katrina — which was already rebuilt at a cost of at least $250 million.

Meanwhile, only about half of the 42,000 homeowners who suffered damage will be offered federal housing money and for those the payments will only equal the limit on their homeowners insurance policy, and many poor people were simply underinsured.

Clearly, the earmarks have their own kind of momentum that often defy logic and good fiscal sense.

The Mississippi case of earmarks offers a new twist. While few are ready to suggest the Gulf Coast does not need the money, critics now say some of the favorite projects via the system of earmarks are taking away money needed by those who have don’t have a lobbying budget and don’t have friends in the Senate.

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