Congressman Paul Kanjorski will be at the Pocono Builder’s Association (PBA) Homebuyer’s and Homeowner’s Education Seminar on Saturday, May 31 from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m at the PMAR offices on Shafers School House Road and business Route 209 in Stroud Township.
If anybody knows where to find Lou Barletta let me know and I will be happy to post it without comment. For some reason I'm not on the press release list which I don't understand.
America's Mayor did send out a PR today that is posted on his site. I think this is the first time I've read something on his website that didn't have to do with immigration. He suggests that the money earmarked for the inflatable dam can be redirected to cleaning up the Susquehanna River and flood control projects, which sounds good.
The problem is that it reveals an ignorance of the legislative process. As the word suggests an "earmark" has to be used for a project that is defined in the legislation. If the project doesn't happen the money is not available for other uses. That $14 million allocated to the dam went poof when it was shot down.
Last fall Kanjo got another $20 million to clean up the river and is working for more.
dah er um an earmark is a earmark, we lost da money cause of dem mexicans
ReplyDeleteGort,
ReplyDeleteI disagree with your comment about ignorance of the legislative process.
Earmarks are monies restricted in an agency budget that would be in charge of the project slated for the earmark. An earmark "usually means that a project that might have provided a greater economic impact did not get funded" because a politician decided his pet project was more important that the needs cited by state and/or local officials.
Not all of the money from an earmark will make it to the project through a process known as "earmark splitting" where the agency takes a portion of the earmark for administrative purposes. There is no specific criteria for earmark splitting therefore the agency can take as much as it wants or feels it needs. It doesn't have to answer to anyone for the deducted amount. So the initial amount apppropriated is not the actual amount spent on the project.
Congress has the ability to pass a law and divert earmark money. A federal aviation discretionary grant that was slated for Alaska was diverted to Louisiana.
And that is exactly what can happen in this case. The agency was funded in the budget for the money for the dam. That money didn't disappear or evaporate; it is still there. PK talked about this money in 2003 so it has remained in an account available for expenditure. It remains in the Treasury.
Many earmarks do not add any extra money to agency budgets. They merely restrict the usual funding an agency receives for the pet project.
In this instance the money can be redistributed for another project by Congressional direction. Paul Kanjorski can spearhead an effort to redirect that money for dam cleanup if he wanted to.
If I were to believe your statement as well as Paul's on his website that the money can never be used it would mean the money is no longer anywhere. Money is like matter. Matter or energy are neither created nor destroyed, it only moved from place to place. Credit two German physicists, Julius Robert von Mayer (1814:1878) and Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821:1894)with that insight. In this case it is moved back to the Treasury for redistribution. And what better way to do it but to clean up the river. Barletta was right on the money.
Mayor Lou is obviously not in sync with Hackett. Maybe he should propose a tappdtotx cut to help clean the river.
ReplyDeleteBetter yet...blame illegals for the river waste, then get a photo op cutting Grover Norqvists's lawn.
ReplyDelete