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Thursday, February 18, 2010

FY 2010 Earmarks for South Dakota: $148 Million

Taxpayers for Common Sense has posted its Fiscal Year 2010 Earmark Database. South Dakota's take in earmarks, by my sorting of the spreadsheet: $147,824,150.

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

$32,200,000MNI Wiconi Project
Energy and WaterBureau of ReclamationHJTP
$14,500,000Add/Alt Deployment CenterEllsworth Air Force BaseMilitary ConstructionAir ForceHJTP
$11,604,000Fort Randall Dam, Lake Francis Case, SD
Energy and WaterCorps of EngineersP
$9,383,000Big Bend Dam, Lake Sharpe, SD
Energy and WaterCorps of EngineersP
$7,890,000Joint Forces HQ Readiness Center SupplementCamp RapidMilitary ConstructionArmy National GuardHJT
$3,200,000Alternative Power Technology for Missile DefenseBrookingsDefenseResearch, Development, Test & EvaluationHJT
$3,000,000Advanced Electronics Rosebud IntegrationRosebudDefenseResearch, Development, Test & EvaluationHJT
$3,000,000Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Lower Brule Sioux, SDLower Brule SiouxEnergy and WaterCorps of EngineersJT
$3,000,000SD Highway 63 Resurfacing, SD
Transportation-Housing and Urban DevelopmentFederal Highway AdministrationT
$2,750,000Sun Grant Initiative (SD)
Energy and WaterDepartment of EnergyHJ

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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