Website of the week, August week 1

I already featured this site once before, www.taxpayer.net, run by the group "Taxpayer's for Common Sense" but I wanted to show you this too, a part of the site that lists the earmarks for each state in the just passed highway bill (which has now been signed into law). This page shows the total per state, and you can click on each state for a list of each project for the state. Its worth a look:
http://www.taxpayer.net/Transportation/safetealu/states.htm

Way to go Congress, it only took a few years to pass a highway bill!

Well, after countless years and extensions of the past highway bill, Congress has finally passed a highway bill and the president has signed it into law. I guess I have to give Congress a little bit of a break here considering the weighty matters they took care of first, such as steroids in sports and the Terry Schiavo thing. I won't even get into that here. The highway bill funding is listed at $286 billion and change. The article linked below from AP via Yahoo tells a little more about it. There are also some websites listed at the bottom if you want more info on the bill.

The bill has drawn some controversy for its amount of pork, especially in the form of earmarks. An earmark is where funding for a specific project is put into the legislation in addition to the amount that state will already receive from the federal government. A couple of bridges in Alaska are drawing fire for spending close to half a billion, only to be used by just a few people. Keep in mind that the chair of the committee in the House, Republican Dick Young, is from Alaska. Believe it or not, the highest amount spent in this bill per capita is in, you guessed it, Alaska! That is the part I love about government, Republicans normally are anti big government unless it means money for their own district. Not to worry my conservative friends, democrats are just as bad.

Some of these earmarks make sense to me, such as money for a new Missouri River bridge on I29/35 here in KC. What doesn't make sense are things like $2 million to landscape along a highway (that is really in the highway bill). You can't really argue that such spending on cosmetic things like landscaping helps to create a ton of jobs or improves transportation, some of the goals for increasing highways spending.

I will delve more deeply into the highway bill on my spin on issues blog coming up shortly.

Here is an article from Ap via Yahoo if you want to check it out:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050811/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush;_ylt=Au7zAQ9a3HvugoR89gM5n_2yFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

One of the newsworld's best is gone.........

Okay, Peter Jennings dying is not news to anyone any more, but still thought it worth a comment. You can read a story about him at the link below from Yahoo if interested. My own personal take on Peter Jennings is that he was great at what he did. I watched all three networks' national news shows, but I always liked ABC more and mainly because of Peter Jennings. He always seemed to know what he was talking about. I was shocked at how quickly he passed from cancer after only being diagnosed a few months ago. Peter, you were on of the best and you will be missed. Pity the man or woman who has to try and fill your shoes permanently. Its been a landmark past few months for the national network news shoes with all 3 (Brokaw, Jennings and Rather) now gone for one reason or another.

Here is the link:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050808/ap_on_en_tv/obit_jennings