Buried deep in the largest domestic spending bill of the year is money for a library and museum honoring first ladies. The $130,000 was requested by the local congressman, Representative Ralph Regula, Republican of Ohio. The library was founded by his wife, Mary A. Regula. The director of the library is his daughter, Martha A. Regula.
Other “namesake projects” in the bill include the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, named for the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee; the Thad Cochran Research Center at the University of Mississippi, named for the senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee; and the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service at South Dakota State University, honoring the former Senate Democratic leader.
The bill also includes “Harkin grants” to build schools and promote healthy lifestyles in Iowa, where Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat, is running for re-election.
The federal government is taking $2.9 trillion of our hard-earned money this year. That will include the need to borrow $155 billion because even the record $2.8 trillion tax haul isn’t sufficient to cover all of America’s vital needs. Like the National First Ladies Museum and the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service. Really, have they no shame? Politicians tax Americans to build monuments to themselves, or to provide jobs for their families.
Projects that are actually needed–federal courthouses, perhaps, or highways–might appropriately be named for great Americans of the past. But naming monuments for living politicians is a bit too reminiscent of North Korea or Turkmenistan. Perhaps if we’re going to name public works projects for living people, they should all be named for the people who actually pay for those projects–the taxpayers. So we could name them Taxpayers’ Highway, Taxpayers’ Federal Courthouse, Taxpayers Airport.
But at least those are useful projects. The earmarks mentioned above are for fripperies and indulgences and monuments to the ego of politicians. Members of Congress should be ashamed to spend the money taxed away from working people on these tributes to themselves.
