Nancy Pelosi's rubber stamp votes for a pet project.
Pork Project: Presidio Heritage Center
Where: San Fransisco
Cost to Taxpayers: 1.5 million
Ohio Jobs Created: 0
On September 24, 2008, Rep. Marcy Kaptur voted in favor of HR 2638, a $630 billion bill that contained 2,322 earmarks (Roll Call 632).
Included among those earmarks was $1.5 million for the Presidio Heritage Center in San Francisco, our #7 in the countdown of her most wasteful pork projects.
The Presidio is part of the National Park Service. Because of its unique city-like nature and the costs associated with maintaining it, Congress created the Presidio Trust in 1996 to preserve the Presidio's resources and to help the park become financially "self-sufficient." Of course, despite the goal to be financially self-sufficient by 2013, the Presidio is still being supported with pork projects.
This earmark was requested by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. To learn that Rep. Kaptur supported this expenditure should come as no surprise, since she votes with Rep. Pelosi 96% of the time.
To make matters worse, the Presidio Heritage Center received an additional earmark of $5 million in 2009. Apparently, it needed even more government support before becoming financially "self-sufficient."
As Citizens Against Government Waste said the day after HR 2638 passed:
In a flurry of activity yesterday, (House Appropriations Committee Chairman David) Obey forced Congress to vote on a stop-gap continuing resolution worth $1 trillion in spending with less than 24 hours to review its contents. The rush was aimed at getting lawmakers out of Washington, D.C. as quickly as possible to campaign before the November election and to short-circuit any in-depth scrutiny of the billions of dollars in wasteful spending. The bill came to the House floor under a closed rule, which prohibited amendments and passed 370 to 58.
"Chairman Obey's actions, and the actions of the entire Democratic leadership team in the House represent a stunning abdication of fiscal responsibility," said CCAGW President Tom Schatz. "A significant number of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are allowing themselves to be steamrolled and, once again, demonstrating blatant hostility to the rights of taxpayers...