By Gerard Shields, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA), February 15, 2008
15 Feb 2008 // U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu ranked as one of the highest members of Congress to sign her name to so-called earmark spending for home-state and special interest projects.
Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, secured $103.3 million in earmark spending by herself. She also signed her name onto spending requests with other Senate colleagues that gained $469.6 million.
Landrieu said Thursday that many of the requests funded schools, roads and water projects in Louisiana.
“I’m proud of the $469 million I’ve brought to the state,” Landrieu said.
The Taxpayers for Common Sense reviewed 12,881 earmarks that were added to federal spending bills for the current fiscal year. The spending requests by lawmakers totaled $18.3 billion.
During his recent State of the Union speech, President Bush vowed to veto any spending bills for 2009 that do not cut back on earmarks. Nearly two dozen lawmakers have joined him in calling for reducing the spending, which has been criticized as related more to politics than necessity.
Earmarks became controversial in the past because they could be tucked into spending bills without sponsors being identified. Lawmakers now are required to put their names on the spending, though critics say the money still traditionally gets inserted at the committee hearings without proper scrutiny.
The Louisiana delegation received $124.4 million in individual earmarks and over $1 billion in requests supported by other congressional colleagues.
Landrieu has been the subject of an earmark controversy. The Washington Post reported last year that she requested $2 million for a literacy project in the District of Columbia in 2001. She later asked the owner of the literacy company to hold a fundraiser for her.
Officials, lobbyists, family members and employees of the Voyager Expanded Learning literacy program have contributed $80,000 to Landrieu campaigns, the newspaper reported.
A government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has filed a complaint against Landrieu with the Senate Ethics Committee. Both Landrieu and the president of the company at the time, Randy Best, said the earmark and the campaign funding request were unrelated.
Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, pointed to the situation surrounding Landrieu as an example of the problem with earmarks.
“Instead of funding the best or most important projects, we’re funding projects based on political support,” Ellis said. “It shows that earmarks can be like matches, and when you play with earmarks, you can get burned.”
U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman, led Louisiana House members, securing $6.8 million by himself in earmarks. Like Landrieu, Alexander serves on the appropriations committee, which handles the federal spending bills.
Alexander stood by his funding requests, contending that the entire Bush budget is an earmark, projects deemed important by the administration.
“The budget is a big long list of earmarks submitted by bureaucrats who don’t know the needs of Louisiana,” Alexander said. “The merit system has not built us a new terminal for the Monroe Airport.”