Massachusetts Editorial: Kennedy Earmark Good Example of Congressional Excess
Salem, Mass., News
Sen. John Kerry has inserted into a defense spending bill a $20 million earmark to help fund the construction of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
Intended as a memorial to the late senator, regarded by many as one of the most distinguished lawmakers in Massachusetts history, the project might instead become an example of just what’s wrong with our government.
The institute, to be located on the University of Massachusetts Boston campus near the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, is intended to serve as a repository for Kennedy’s papers and a civic education center. It will include a replica of the Senate floor on which organizers plan to host an annual “Summer Senate” for high-school students.
The building itself will cost around $50 million. Backers hope to raise more than $100 million to help pay for the building and fund an endowment.
Kennedy began the groundwork for the institute before his death from brain cancer. By early this year, the institute had collected some $20 million in donations from the very health-care insurers, hospital groups and drug companies Kennedy regulated in the Senate — a fundraising effort Slate magazine referred to as “a shakedown.”
But even if Kennedy and his immediate family members had kept their distance from such fundraising, it raised ethical questions — questions dismissed earlier this year by the very man who would go on to be appointed Kennedy’s interim replacement in the Senate.
“In terms of the legal and ethical compliance, it’s perfectly appropriate,” Paul Kirk told the Boston Globe in January. “What we intend to do is be perfectly transparent in what we’ve received in donations.”
Kirk resigned his position on the Kennedy Institute’s board after Gov. Deval Patrick appointed him to fill Kennedy’s seat last week. But he could end up voting on the defense bill that includes the money for the institute.
And now, thanks to Kerry, the shakedown has extended to the taxpayers.
Simply put, the $20 million earmark has no place in the $360 billion defense budget. “It (federal funding) really amplifies the bad things that Congress is doing right now,” David Williams, vice president of policy for Citizens Against Government Waste, told Boston’s Channel 5.
And from the St. Petersburg Times Politifact.com: “During the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, 2008, Barack Obama said he had stopped requesting earmarks as a senator and that he shared McCain’s desire for earmark reform and the elimination of wasteful projects.”
Kerry and other senators defend this earmark by citing Kennedy’s long tenure on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And they note it is but one of hundreds of such measures in the defense bill that would divert more than $2 billion in spending from the Pentagon to other purposes.
But hundreds of wrongs don’t make the Kennedy earmark right.
We are in the middle of a war — one that, in Afghanistan, is in need of greater resources, not fewer. Our troops should get these funds, not the Kennedy Institute.
If Sen. Kerry thinks American taxpayers should help pay for a monument to Ted Kennedy, let him file a bill seeking that appropriation on its own merit. That’s the way government should work.
Thank you John,
The earmarks have got to stop. Every single one of them on any and all bills, all laws. This also applies to changes to the IRS rules.
[...] The Salem, Mass., News details the monument to Ted Kennedy this way: Kerry and other senators defend this earmark by citing Kennedy’s long tenure on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And they note it is but one of hundreds of such measures in the defense bill that would divert more than $2 billion in spending from the Pentagon to other purposes. But hundreds of wrongs don’t make the Kennedy earmark right. [...]
[...] The Salem, Mass., News details the monument to Ted Kennedy this way: Kerry and other senators defend this earmark by citing Kennedy’s long tenure on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And they note it is but one of hundreds of such measures in the defense bill that would divert more than $2 billion in spending from the Pentagon to other purposes. But hundreds of wrongs don’t make the Kennedy earmark right. [...]