More Things That Aren't "Earmarks"

Amanda Carpenter | January 09, 2009 9:15 AM

Edwardsville, Alabama is askingfor Barack Obama $375 million to help stimulate the economy in their tiny town populated by all of 194 people--which would be a handout of nearly $2 million per person.

What would they do with this money you ask? Funding to build a museum, a vineyard and a "solar-enhanced" scenic railway for the vineyard, an a solar recharge station for electric golf carts were among their 30-some requests made in a new report.

"Do you know how hard it is to fund some of these projects when your tax base is so low?" U.S Conference of Mayors Representative E.D. Phillips told U.S. News and World Report. "So we just breathed this sigh of relief when we found out about the stimulus package . . . especially when it had a focus on renewable energy."

According to President-elect Obama these kinds of requests aren't "earmarks" though. (Here's my post on that from a few days ago.) Hah.