April Discloures Bring May Excuses

If you, like me, sneered at the new earmark transparency rules as yet another toothless gesture by Congress toward the pretense of responsibility, you might want to dig into your local representative's website.

The Lexington Herald-Leader went prospecting in the website of earmarker extraordinaire Hal Rogers (R-KY5) and found gold.

For nearly 30 years, U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers has used his sway on powerful committees to steer billions in federal funds into his Eastern Kentucky district.

Now, new rules requiring members of Congress to publicize their requests on their Web sites offer — for the first time — an early glimpse into exactly which projects the Somerset Republican, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, favors before those multimillion-dollar requests are tucked into federal spending bills.

There are 103 requests totaling $466.6 million on Rogers’ 22-page request form, which is buried several pages deep on his Web site.

Those requests benefit Rogers' hometown, his extended family, and his campaign contributors.

Those requests include roughly $40 million for programs that Rogers created or that are housed in Rogers’ hometown of Somerset at the Center for Rural Development, a sprawling, state-of-the-art facility known locally as the “Taj-Ma Hal.”

The National Institute for Hometown Security, a non-profit organization that Rogers helped create and has few staffers, is slated to net $15 million “to continue to provide leadership in discovering and developing community-based critical infrastructure protections solutions.”

The Department of Homeland Security has never requested any funding for the National Institute of Hometown Security, though former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge came to Kentucky to announce the non-profit’s formation several years ago.

SNIP

Rogers sees the connection as coincidental. He says he’s “never been shy about working to bring jobs to southern and Eastern Kentucky” and is merely doing what he was elected to do.

Read the whole thing, then go to the website of your own House member and find out what she thinks is a good use of tax dollars.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....