Results tagged “earmarks”

The big $131 billion NY State budget may have finally passed, but its contents are still... unclear. The Post (naturally) offers criticism from the Republican minority: Senator Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn) says, "They haven't broken down where all the stimulus money is going. How do you vote on a budget that's not broken down and has only whole numbers? We asked for a breakdown and they told us [Friday] a list was forthcoming."

New York State will be receiving some $750 million from Washington in earmarks for various projects throughout the state, and Senator Chuck Schumer, as usual, is getting most of the credit. According to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, the $410 billion federal budget contains approximately $7.7 billion in disclosed earmarks for various politicians' pet projects; 230 of those earmarks have New York pols' names attached. Locally, these include $381,000 for music education programs at Jazz at Lincoln Center, $277 million for the Second Avenue subway, and $210 million to connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central. Watchdog groups argue that many of these special projects—such as $950,000 for a pedestrian bridge in Poughkeepsie (a bridge in nowhere?)—win funding based on each politicians' power, not because of the projects' merits. But Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon tells the Daily News, "If left to them, Washington bureaucrats wouldn't give New York its fair share."