Stimulus serves up Obama pork
16th June 2009
Democrats insisted they were so serious about keeping pork out of the stimulus bill that it was President Obama himself who blocked the FutureGen project from the massive spending package.
Oh, wait, that’s not what we meant.
The Department of Energy on Friday announced that the FutureGen project is on track after all, committing federal stimulus money to advance the project to its next stage. One reason: It was the only shovel-ready project that fits the requirements of the stimulus bill.
General rule: Whenever the government spends money, that money will be spent, if it can possibly be, in a way that will either buy votes for an incumbent legislator or increase the power of a government bureaucracy.
FutureGen had an enormous amount of political juice with the new administration. Not only had Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, been backers of the project but so had the new secretary of transportation, Ray LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Illinois.
I guess so.