WASHINGTON — A massive spending bill expected to be approved by Congress this week is filled with more than 8,500 earmarks -- those pet projects that lawmakers love -- costing $7.7 billion.
Despite the tough economy, mounting federal budget deficit and pledges by President Obama and members of both parties to crack down on the practice, a number of lawmakers have defended their earmarks as important to the nation's economic recovery.
And there's plenty in the bill for California: a DNA lab in Glendale, a new air traffic control tower for Palm Springs, police surveillance cameras for Rialto, a "green" jobs program in Berkeley and funding to help pay for new display space at the Autry National Center of the American West in Los Angeles.
"So much for the promise of change," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a frequent critic of pork-barrel spending, said this week on the Senate floor.
But one man's pork is another man's economic stimulus.
Rep. Michael M. Honda (D-San Jose) said his earmarks would "not only spur job growth, innovation and economic development in my district but, importantly, reassure my constituents that their tax dollars are being efficiently and effectively returned to their communities in visible and meaningful ways."
Southern California projects include $81.6 million for the Gold Line eastside extension, which will run from downtown to East Los Angeles, and $1.8 million to help build a trench to speed trains traveling through the San Gabriel Valley and reduce the risks of collisions with cars and pedestrians.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) called the $95,000 he secured for a park project in his district crucial to the "economic viability of the beach as a tourist attraction."
A Compton project -- $476,000 for the Tomorrow's Aeronautical Museum -- was singled out for criticism by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a self-described pork buster. "This earmark," he quipped in a news release, "is naut a good idea."
But a spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who pushed for the funding, said the nonprofit museum "serves underprivileged youth, educating them about aeronautics and even teaching them how to fly. It has received national honors as a groundbreaking, innovative program that helps achieve academic success. Educational programs like this one are a good use of public dollars."
