by Robert James Bidinotto
BigGovernment.com
4/24/2010
At a time when the American taxpayer is on the hook for trillions in current and future federal spending—when the Congressional Budget Office warns that the current rate of federal spending is “unsustainable”—liberal Democrats in Congress have earmarked over $68 million of taxpayer dollars for a Boston shrine to the late Senator Edward Kennedy.
In a detailed report, the Boston Herald describes the planned Edward M. Kennedy Institute as a “temple for Ted Kennedy built with pork.”
According to their account, congressional Democrats—especially Massachusetts senators John Kerry and Edward Markey—have been cramming earmarks for the project into various government funding bills. The Herald found that Kerry and Markey even intend to siphon $28.9 million of the institute’s funding from the Defense Department budget, with almost $19 million of that amount already signed into law.
Why do they think taxpayers should be paying for this shrine? A statement from a Kerry spokesman declared that the institute will bring “knowledge and good citizenship to thousands of young people.”
This has raised the ire of taxpayer watchdog groups. “If the Kennedy family wants to honor the senator, they should find a way to fund it themselves,” David E. Williams of Citizens Against Government Waste told the newspaper. Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense agreed that “this could be independently funded and doesn’t need to be getting taxpayer dollars.”
Indeed.
The article continues at BigGovernment.com
