Kerry SNEAKS $20 Million Kennedy Tribute Earmark in Defense Budget

Wake Up John Kerry, this year's deficit is approaching two trillion dollars. The F-22 was canceled leaving us with a gap where the US will have no new bombers and we are fighting two wars. American citizens are protesting all across the country because spending and taxes are way to high and you have the nerve to add a $20 million dollar pork barrel project to honor Ted Kennedy?

That's what the former Democratic Party standard bearer is doing. That  military spending bill moving through Congress contains a sneaky outlay for Boston that has nothing to do with national defense. A $20 million pork barrel earmark for an educational institute honoring the late Teddy Kennedy.

The earmark, tucked into the defense bill at the request of Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, requires US taxpayers to help the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate realize its goal of building a repository for Kennedy’s papers and an accompanying civic learning center on the University of Massachusetts at Boston campus in Dorchester, next to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.

John maybe you are overdosing on your wife's Ketchup but there is a recession going on.

The item is drawing fire from fiscal watchdog groups, who assert that military funds should not be raided to pay for an institution that has nothing to do with improving military readiness.

“Whatever beneficial value civic education may have, it’s hard to see why the Defense Department should pay for it,’’ said Laura Peterson, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington. “It would seem the location of this hefty earmark has more to do with the powerful position of its sponsor than [the Defense Department’s] responsibility to educate elementary school children.’’

Kerry strongly defended the insertion of the $20 million earmark yesterday. He requested that it be included in the $360 billion defense budget, he said, to recognize Kennedy’s long tenure on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Kerry is like the person whose checking account is over-drawn and says, "I can't be overdrawn I still have checks left."  Hey Senator Long Face...THE US IS BROKE !!!! We can't spend any more money like this.  You want to waste $20 Million, sell some Heinz stock.

At Kerry’s request, Senator Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, added the $20 million earmark to the defense bill, congressional aides said. The funding would come on top of $5 million secured with Kerry’s help earlier this year in a Labor Department spending bill, which provided money for the institute’s planning and design.

....Using the national defense budget for such earmarks is considered a particular affront by those advocating for fiscal discipline in the midst of two wars that are straining Pentagon coffers. Overall, the Senate version of the bill includes 778 earmarks worth $2.65 billion, including a number that have little or nothing to do with military matters.

A major concern is what gets cut from the Pentagon budget to make room for things like the Kennedy institute, said Winslow Wheeler, director of the Strauss Military Reform Project at the left-leaning Center for Defense Information in Washington.

“The committee did not add money to the bill to pay for its billions of dollars in pork,’’ Wheeler said.

A spokesman for Inouye declined to explain why the Kennedy institute earmark was inserted into the Pentagon budget, rather than into an education bill or other piece of legislation. In a statement released by his office, Inouye said, “It is my sincere hope that many of these students will be inspired to seek a life of public service, with the same spirit of patriotism and love of country that I saw each and every day from Senator Kennedy.’’

While Kerry said using the defense budget to fund Kennedy’s institute was a tribute to his “leadership on military technology, weapons systems, and safety equipment for our troops,’’ Wheeler said he believes there is a more practical reason.

“It’s a natural for Kerry to go to Inouye on this,’’ Wheeler said. “If it’s in the defense bill it must be a good idea. And the defense bill is sure to pass. He wanted a fast vehicle to get it enacted.’’

Here we go again, money pulled from our heroes to help a senator with a personal earmark. How disgusting !