By Jim Kouri
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
While posing as a diehard conservative, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) was fingered by well-known watchdog group Judicial Watch for a $550,000 allocation hidden in a transportation bill that would fund an obscure North Carolina teapot museum.
According to Judicial Watch, in its online publication Corruption Chronicles, politicians in both major political parties bring home millions of dollars every year for bogus projects by earmarking them onto large bills after legislation has already passed.
Congresswoman Foxx secured the $550,000 in federal money for the Sparta Teapot Museum in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The money was part of a Transportation/Treasury/HUD appropriations bill.
Also, taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste identified nearly 10,000 projects in 11 appropriations bills, costing taxpayers $29 billion, some of which benefited Rep. Foxx.
Among them is $13.5 million for the International Fund for Ireland, which includes funding for the World Toilet Summit; $1 million for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative in Michigan; $234,000 for the Wild Turkey Federation in South Carolina and $550,000 for the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington.
Conservative activists believe that this sort of government spending is underhanded and sneaky and that most taxpayers would forgo the projects in favor of balancing the federal deficit.
They believe political leaders such as Rep. Foxx are tyrannizing "regular guys" and more and more Americans are beginning to take notice which could make earmarks a thing of the past.
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