Remember, that's not total federal funding; that's just the little Christmas ornaments Senator Johnson, Senator Thune, and Representative Herseth Sandlin (and President Obama!) were able to hang on the tree. (Oh, and one from North Dakota Senator Dorgan, who was nice enough to request $150K for a Corps of Engineers investigation on the James River.)
And just which of our Congresspeople were responsible for how much of those earmarks?
House sponsor | Amount | Senate sponsor | percentage of total SD earmarks |
Herseth Sandlin | $360,000 | 0.2% | |
$8,105,000 | Johnson, Tim | 5.5% | |
$5,750,000 | Thune | 3.9% | |
$150,000 | Dorgan | 0.1% | |
Herseth Sandlin | $19,381,550 | Johnson, Tim | 13.1% |
Herseth Sandlin | $0 | Thune | 0.0% |
Herseth Sandlin | $87,947,600 | Johnson, Tim; Thune | 59.5% |
Six out of every ten earmark dollars were requested by our entire Congressional delegation, Democrats and Republican working together to bring home the bacon. And that nice fellow in the White House was nice enough to request more than $20 million more, mostly for the Fort Randall and Big Bend dams.
The ten biggest earmarks for South Dakota:
Amount | Project | Location | Purpose | Agency | Earmarkers H=Herseth J=Johnson T=Thune P=President |
$32,200,000 | MNI Wiconi Project | Energy and Water | Bureau of Reclamation | HJTP | |
$14,500,000 | Add/Alt Deployment Center | Ellsworth Air Force Base | Military Construction | Air Force | HJTP |
$11,604,000 | Fort Randall Dam, Lake Francis Case, SD | Energy and Water | Corps of Engineers | P | |
$9,383,000 | Big Bend Dam, Lake Sharpe, SD | Energy and Water | Corps of Engineers | P | |
$7,890,000 | Joint Forces HQ Readiness Center Supplement | Camp Rapid | Military Construction | Army National Guard | HJT |
$3,200,000 | Alternative Power Technology for Missile Defense | Brookings | Defense | Research, Development, Test & Evaluation | HJT |
$3,000,000 | Advanced Electronics Rosebud Integration | Rosebud | Defense | Research, Development, Test & Evaluation | HJT |
$3,000,000 | Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Lower Brule Sioux, SD | Lower Brule Sioux | Energy and Water | Corps of Engineers | JT |
$3,000,000 | SD Highway 63 Resurfacing, SD | Transportation-Housing and Urban Development | Federal Highway Administration | T | |
$2,750,000 | Sun Grant Initiative (SD) | Energy and Water | Department of Energy | HJ |
The earmarks also include $500K for suicide prevention on the Rosebud, $400K for the Brant Lake sewer system, and $1.2M for developing "stabilized hemoglobin wound healing" for the Army. Once again, I welcome Dr. R. Blake Curd and my Tea Party friends to tell me which of these programs and any of the other earmarks are among the great evils of the Republic that South Dakota should reject.
Some notes from the national earmark scene:
- The Senator and Representative who won the most earmarks are both Republicans.
- Of the top five from each house, five were Republicans, five were Democrats.
- Republicans did claim fewer earmark dollars, taking just 34% of the partisanly assignable dollar value in this budget, compared to 44% in FY 2009.
- 58 Representatives claimed no solo earmarks; 13 were Dems, 45 were GOP.
- 24 Senators claimed no solo earmarks; 16 were Dems (including John Kerry), 8 were GOP (including John McCain).
- Earmarks went down by number, from 10,363 to 9,413.
- Earmarks went up by dollar, from $15.6 billion to $15.9 billion.
- Earmarks went up, barely, as a percentage of the total budget, from 0.44% to 0.45%.
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