On November 9, 2005, Rep. Kaptur voted in favor of H.R. 2862 (roll call vote 581) which contained 1,987 pork projects totaling $1.9 billion, including $100,000 for the Richard Steele Boxing Club in Henderson, Nevada. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) added this earmark in the conference report.

As Citizens Against Government Waste reported in their 2006 Pig Book: "According to the Boxing Club's website, "the Richard Steele Boxing Club is open to at-risk youth in Henderson, Nevada as well as the surrounding Las Vegas area. This program is currently designed to provide 300 to 600 youths, per year, ages 8 to 18 with USA boxing regulation competition in the sport of boxing and international Karate competition."

The first rule of the Boxing Club should be – "Don't earmark money for the Boxing Club." Now, this isn't a lot of money to waste by Washington standards. However, it highlights the lengths to which Kaptur and her colleagues will go to intervene in what should clearly be a locally funded program using either private, locally public, or non-profit sources. They happily spend your tax dollars in doing it, all the while taking every bit of credit for such generosity. You'll never see a 'thank you' note from this Boxing Club. Sorry about that. But then, what did you expect from career politicians?

Well, here's what you might expect - other earmarks in that same bill include:

·       $2,500,000 for Mobile Bay oyster recovery in Alabama

·       $1,100,000 for Operation Streetsweeper in New Hampshire

·       $3,000,000 for the Mauna Kea Discovery Center in Hilo, Hawaii

·       $500,000 for Mitchell Memorial Library in Mississippi for the digitization of special collections

·       $300,000 for the Tanks-a-Lock project in Iowa.