|
Rep. Young is ‘proud’ of his earmarks |
|
By Susan Crabtree
|
|
Posted: 06/13/07 02:00 PM [ET] |
Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) took to the floor late Tuesday night to defend his earmark for the infamous “bridge to nowhere” and another that secured $10 million for a road in Florida that benefited a campaign contributor.
“I was always proud of my earmarks. I believe in earmarks, always have, as long as they are exposed. But don’t you ever call that a scandal,” he said.
Young, a former chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he had not planned to say anything during the GOP posturing over earmarks in spending bills this week, but decided to defend himself on the floor when House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) referred to the bridge-to-nowhere as a scandal. Young made the comments at about 1:30 a.m., according to Democratic sources.
“You voted for it four times,” he said to Obey. “Most of the people in this room voted for it four times. It was always transparent.”
Young was responding to criticism from Obey, who earlier in the evening lambasted Young and former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) for their efforts to secure earmarks while vigorously defending his own earmark disclosure policy and denying Democrats were keeping earmarks secret.
Under Obey’s process, earmarks would not be disclosed until late in the appropriations process, during House and Senate spending conferences. The earmarks will be entered into the Congressional Record before the August recess, but they cannot be stricken from a conference report on a floor vote.
“It took you a couple of years to find out what Duke Cunningham did,” Obey told reporters yesterday. “It took a year to find Don Young’s highway in Florida.”
House Democratic Party officials, who are targeting Young for defeat, immediately seized on the comments as evidence that the Alaska Republican is out of touch with the public concern about earmarks and the role they played in several recent political scandals.
“Congressman Young’s boondoggles are nothing to be ‘proud’ of — wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on campaign contributors’ pet projects instead of securing our nation is scandalous,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, said in a release. “Congressman Young seems to have taken the ‘bridge to nowhere’ to the land of delusion.”
Watchdog groups and the media panned the so-called bridge-to-nowhere when it was uncovered last year. The New York Times recently scrutinized the $10 million earmark for Florida’s Coconut Road and how it benefited a campaign contributor to Young in a lengthy article.
|
