Spending bill seeks $170M for Hawai'i
By Frank Oliveri
Advertiser Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — A massive spending bill the Senate will take up next week includes about $170 million for Hawai'i projects ranging from educating Native Hawaiians to combating the spread of methamphetamine.
The money for 83 budget "earmarks" for Hawai'i works out to about $134.81 for each resident of the state.
Sen. Dan Inouye, second-ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, presided over a wide variety of add-ons including:
• $33.5 million in education money for Native Hawaiians.
• $10 million for the Honolulu bus and "paratransit" replacement program. The paratransit system picks up disabled people at their homes.
• $9.5 million in community development money.
• $7.3 million to protect Hawaiian sea turtles.
• $5 million for a regional office of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
• $2.2 million to build a marine sanctuary for the humpback whale.
The $820 billion federal spending bill, which combines seven government spending bills into one, includes a total of 7,931 projects worth about $10.7 billion that were added on by individual legislators to benefit their states and congressional districts.
Hawai'i ranks 23rd among all states in the amount of home-state money in the spending bill, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. California, New York and Alaska rank first, second and third.
A call for fiscal restraint from congressional lawmakers and President Bush "fell right on its face," said Keith Ashdown at Taxpayers for Common Sense.
The spending bill has passed the House but might run into opposition in the Senate. Budget-conscious Republicans are upset about all the extra projects in the bill, Ashdown said.
Excessive spending on earmark projects ultimately hurts taxpayers, he said, even though much of the money finances ostensibly worthwhile projects like theaters and parks.
That's because spending money on home-state projects takes money away from other services provided by federal agencies, Ashdown said. And those agencies must find a way to pay for overseeing the new projects, despite their tight budgets.
"Sadly, it appears that the pork-barrel, business-as-usual attitude reigns once again," Sen. John McCain of Arizona said last year.
Ashdown complained that the congressional budget system is unfair, with those states represented by lawmakers on appropriations committees snagging the most projects.
"What we're saying is that earmarks are a sign of whatever your state's power is on the appropriations committees," he said.
But Inouye is only serving Hawai'i's needs, said spokesman Mike Yuen. He pointed to almost $5 million Inouye sought to blunt Hawai'i's problem with crystal methamphetamine, or ice.
"Just because the White House doesn't ask for it," Yuen said, "does not make it pork."
