From USAToday:
The Senate voted Thursday to kill a $1 million grant for a museum on the site of the 1969 Woodstock concert, a rare rebuke of a legislative pet project and a blow to the presidential candidate who backed it, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton and her New York colleague, Sen. Charles Schumer, had the funding inserted into the $604 billion education and health spending bill. The Woodstock project’s main backer, Alan Gerry, is a registered Republican who recently became a major contributor to the Schumer-led Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Watch the money here:
- Alan Gerry, who according to Forbes magazine is worth $1.3 billion, bought the Woodstock concert site a decade ago with plans to turn it into a tourist center.
- The health spending bill passed the appropriations committee June 21 with the Woodstock earmark. Five days later, Gerry, his wife, and two of their children made a $20,000 contribution to the Democrats’ senate campaign committee.
- Nine days after the “earmark” was placed in the bill in June, Gerry and his wife contributed the maximum of $9,200 to Clinton’s primary and general election campaign funds.
Whether or not Gerry is a “registered Republican” is not germane here. This is all about money. Alan Gerry is trying to convert his recently-bought pasture land into a tourist center. The Woodstock museum, due to open next year, is part of a larger development called the Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts. His property would have greatly increased in value with a taxpayer-funded museum on it.
So he sends money to both New York Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer. They, in turn, try to hide the $1 million grant for the museum into the $604 billion education and health spending bill. What a Woodstock museum has to do with education and health is quite beyond me, but I’m sure the senators could explain that to me. Heck, Schumer even publicly said, “I am proud of the earmarks I’ve put in this bill.” I’m sure the voters of New York are proud of the person they voted as their senator.
“Woodstock Museum is a shining example of what’s wrong with Washington on pork-barrel, out-of-control spending,” said John McCain, Arizona senator and Republican presidential hopeful. An example, he said, of “the earmark pork-barrel spending which has made the American people disenchanted and angry.”
Says Hugh Hewitt:
But as the past three weeks have made abundantly clear, Hillary is no “liberal,” or even a “progressive.” She is a radical, and one far outside the mainstream of American politics. In the growing recognition of the true nature of her political ideology is the obvious strategy for whoever the GOP nominee is: Throw the light on what she believes and proposes and keep it there.
Hillary has unveiled her far-reaching reworking of American health care, blowing right past the efforts at the state level to devise new solutions in favor of a one size fits all top-to-bottom restructuring and expansion of government mandates. This is not a “progressive” approach to problem solving, but a radical shift in authority and size of the federal role in health care.
And now her $5,000 bonus for every baby born –HillaryCradleCare, a boondoggle reminiscent of George McGovern’s $1,000 per person pay-off from 1972.
This is not a liberal’s targeted tax cut, but a massive expansion of federal spending – a new entitlement that no one had even previously thought to suggest!
Hillary is not mainstream. She’s not even on the far left bank of the mainstream.
She is way, way out there – a genuine ’60s girl, and the ideas and staff she would bring to the White House would represent a sharp break with all that has gone before in American politics.
Not just a far left revolutionary, but also an opportunistic prostitute, trading her abilities and powers for someone else’s cash.
New York, Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer, spending bill, Woodstock, earmark
4 responses so far ↓
1 Rich Klein, Bethel, NY // Oct 23, 2007 at 3:55 pm
The museum would help an upstate New York county that has struggled mightily since the 1970s. People who don’t live in our Sullivan County houses shouldn’t throw stones. Every elected official promises job creation and economic vitality. At least Hillary and Chuck back up their campaign promises, unlike so many of the self-righteous Republicans who criticized the earmark. And, if you want to talk about waste, let’s start with the Bush Administration’s backroom deals with contractors in the billions of dollars for Katrina and Iraq.
2 Shamalama // Oct 23, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Whether the museum would, in fact, help an upstate New York county is not relevant. The fact that two respected senators would try and hide such funding within an education and health spending bill is relevant. The fact that I, as a taxpayer in Georgia, would have been partially responsible, through my income tax deductions, to fund such a museum is relevant.
Reputation matters. And your two senators just earned a bit more negative reputation by trying this sneaky play for my wallet.
“People who don’t live in our Sullivan County houses shouldn’t throw stones?” How about people who don’t live in your Sullivan County houses shouldn’t have to fund your purely local boondoggle? This is a purely local situation and should have been settled at the local or state level; this is not a federal situation, and therefore should not receive federal funds. Talk about self-righteous, huh?
“At least Hillary and Chuck back up their campaign promises?” What promises? Follow the timeline and money trail. This is nothing short of a payoff between Gerry, Clinton, and Schumer. Before Gerry (and his money) got involved I doubt either Clinton or Schumer even knew about this place.
And how could your comment be complete without a quick Bush Derangement Syndrome rant, huh? Well, since Bush actually caused Hurricane Katrina in the first place, shouldn’t he get to clean it up any way he chooses?
Please, sir, put the tin-foil hat back on and watch for black helicopters.
Ah, but back to Sullivan County. Paradise between the Poconos and the Catskills. “Hear the music, dance with nature.” Just keep your grimy hands out of my wallet. And tell your flunkies to quit hiding their “promises” in legitimate governmental spending.
3 Rich Klein // Oct 23, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Mr. Georgia, my tax dollars from New York go for pork in your state so get off your high horse. And you’ve had some great Senators –like Bob Barr — who was in the pocket of the NRA. You should take a course in government and how it works and how it doesn’t. It’s not perfect, but if Woodstock happened in Arizona you can bet that John McCain would be fighting for the same earmark. Many museums around the country receive federal funding because these museums — and other cultural institutions –are for all Americans to enjoy. So I don’t understand how you can call it a “local boondoggle.”
4 Shamalama // Oct 24, 2007 at 8:53 am
If Woodstock happened in Arizona you can bet that John McCain would be fighting for the same earmark and I would be just as opposed to it. I’m not on a high horse, I’m exposing fraud against taxpayers. I’m looking out for your wallet as much as I’m looking out for mine.
If you know of any of your tax dollars from New York going for pork in my state then please let me know and I’ll complain to my senators.
The word “boondoggle” means a wasteful or impractical project or activity often involving the acquisition of gain in dishonest or questionable ways, which is exactly what this Woodstock museum is. Otherwise why did Clinton and Schumer go to all the trouble of hiding it within an education and health spending bill? Why not just propose a stand-alone bill for the museum based on its own merits? And how is it that every time this hidden pork moved through the bill process Clinton and Schumer suddenly received campaign contributions from the one person that would benefit most from this museum? This is exactly the way government -shouldn’t- work, not bought and paid for by the highest bidder.
Bob Barr in the pocket of the NRA? By that do you mean he is a member of the NRA and votes to protect the Second Amendment? So what? So do I. Are you implying there’s something wrong with that?
Many museums around the country receive federal funding. Many cultural institutions around the country receive federal funding. But I bet if you asked the voters -before- applying the federal funding you would find that most people do -not- want their money going for such things. Most of the time the voters find out -after- such funding has been established. And many times it happens through hidden earmarks. So what happens if you want a museum and I don’t? Do you have the right under the US Constitution to force me, through the mandatory income tax, to fund something you want and leave me with no recourse or remedy? Where is equal protection under the law for this?
Who is it that makes the decision that something “is for all Americans to enjoy”? I have absolutely no desire to visit, fund, or enjoy a museum that glorifies a single outdoor concert filled with the counterculture of the hippies, free sex, and illegal drugs. I was not raised with those values, I have not raised my children to have those values, and I have no desire to honor those in 1969 that embellished those values. No, a Woodstock museum would not be a place for “all Americans to enjoy”.