Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Blunt lauds veto of bill which included numerous Joplin-area projects


An article just posted on the Washington Post website indicates that while Seventh District Congressman Roy Blunt was praising President Bush's veto of a pork-laden appropriations bill...projects Blunt had placed in the bill were among those that bit the dust:

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) roundly assailed the "Democrats' Labor-H Spending Nightmare" in a news release that preceded Bush's veto of the labor, health and human services and education spending bill last week. Blunt decried the "spending spree" hidden in the transportation, housing and urban development bill. House Republican Conference Chairman Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.) dismissed the now-vetoed labor, health and education bill as a "billion-dollar earmark bonanza."

But while Blunt and Putnam fired away, they may have quietly ached for the sorry fate of those two bills. The dear, departed "Labor-H" nightmare included more than $1.4 million in projects secured by Blunt, including $400,000 for the purchase of equipment by Joplin, Mo.'s Freeman Health System, $100,000 for the Joplin School District and another $100,000 for a college preparatory pilot program at Missouri State University.

Putnam's central Florida district was due for $1.25 million in federal largess, including advanced manufacturing training programs for Polk Community College in Winter Haven and funding for Florida Southern College in Lakeland to "digitize holdings and create an online exhibit."

Blunt has nearly $2 million in pet projects -- or earmarks -- socked away for Missouri in the transportation and housing bill that Bush has vowed to veto, including $1 million to bolster midfield terminal construction at Springfield-Branson National Airport and $350,000 for streetscape improvements in Joplin.

No comments: