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December 09, 2010

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood

By CREW Staff

Congress, Earmarks, Pork, News, States, Kentucky, House Members, Harold Rogers, Jerry Lewis

Sometimes it's better to laugh than cry about what goes on in Washington. Case and point, the man who will be leading an earmark-free House Appropriations Committee in the 112^th Congress: Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY). That would be the same Hal Rogers who has requested a quarter of a billion dollars in earmarks for his rural Kentucky district in the last two years alone.

Of course the man who has been dubbed "the Prince of Pork" (now deceased Democrat Robert C. Byrd was the king) is no stranger to CREW. The congressman's porkulous ways earned him a place on CREW's wall of shame in 2007 and 2008. You can read it all here, but our favorite Mr. Rogers' story involves him earmarking truckloads of taxpayer money to an airport in his hometown of Somerset, Kentucky... which then conveniently started offering flights between there and Dulles Airport on Mondays and Fridays... the days lawmakers generally fly to and from DC. The airport isn't too far from Hal Rogers Parkway either.

There's more... from our friends at Citizens Against Government Waste who named him "Porker of the Month".... this past August!

According to a July 26, 2010 article in the Lexington Herald-Leader, "U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, is sponsoring a bill to give $5 million a year to conservation groups that work overseas on behalf of endangered ‘great cats and rare canids,' such as cheetahs, lions and Ethiopian wolves. One group interested in applying, should Rogers' bill become law, is the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund. Its grants administrator, Allison Rogers, is the congressman's daughter

CNN's Anderson Cooper pointed out the... shall we say... irony of it all last night

Will the cheetah change its spots? Suppose we'll see... but in an attempt to find at least one silver lining in this farce of a decision - at least Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) didn't get the gavel.