Pick your Pork: Semi-Final Edition (Senate Stimulus Bill)
McClatchy via their Planet Washington web page brings us a list of what actually got cut from the Senate bill. And the title pretty much tells the story (though I will be adding a few words later).
What the Senate’s cut: Funds for states and schools
Here’re the cuts, according to Sen. Leahy’s office. Based on this list, the governors who’ve been the strongest supporters of the stimulus bill, because it offered them some relief in a terrible budget year, will cry the loudest. Schools, environmental programs and broadband expansion projects also take a hit.
Billion dollar cuts
$40 billion State Fiscal Stabilization
$16 billion School Construction
$7.5 billion of State Incentive Grants
$5.8 billion Health Prevention Activity
$4.5 billion GSA
$3.5 billion Higher Ed Construction (Eliminated)
$3.5 billion Federal Bldgs Greening
$2.25 Neighborhood Stabilization (Eliminate)
$2 billion broadband
$2 billion HIT Grants
$1.25 billion project based rental
$1 billion Head Start/Early Start
$1.2 billion in Retrofiting Project 8 Housing
$1 billion Energy Loan Guarantees
Million dollar cuts
$100 million FSA modernization (Farm Services Agency)
$50 million CSERES Research (????)
$65 million Watershed Rehab
$30 million SD Salaries (education)
$100 million Distance Learning
$98 million School Nutrition
$50 million aquaculture
$100 million NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
$100 million NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
$100 million Law Enforcement Wireless
$50 million Detention Trustee
$25 million Marshalls Construction
$100 million FBI Construction
$300 million Federal Prisons
$300 million BYRNE Formula (law enforcement grants for local cops)
$140 million BYRNE Competitive (law enforcement grants for local cops)
$10 million State and Local Law Enforcement
$50 million NASA
$50 million Aeronautics
$50 million Exploration
$50 million Cross Agency Support
$200 million NSF
$100 million Science
$300 million Fed Hybrid Vehicles
$50 million from DHS (homeland security)
$200 million TSA (homeland security)
$122 million for Coast Guard Cutters, modifies use
$25 million Fish and Wildlife
$55 million Historic Preservation
$20 million working capital fund
$200 million Superfund
$165 million Forest Svc Capital Improvement
$90 million State & Private Wildlife Fire Management
$75 million Smithsonian
$600 million Title I (NCLB)
I’ll be updating the post and annotating the line items as the day goes on. In the meanwhile here is the list.
First we can put paid to the idea that this was just a social program pork-fest designed to advance the liberal agenda. Unless of course you include law enforcement, homeland security, science and broadband as being exclusively liberal concerns. Because all of them got hit pretty hard here. But there is no doubt who took it in the shorts overall-schools. $16.5 billion in schools, another $3.5 billion in higher education construction, whatever portion of the $40 billion in state funds that would have gone to schools, and $600 million for No Child Left Behind. And at least half of that school funding devoted directly to construction, which is to say local jobs. Plus we could add in the $1 billion dollar cut in Head Start funding.
Second what is really striking is that the list is really not very ideological at all. It looks pretty much like what it is, demands by deficit hawks to trim back the overall cost. Moreover most of the line items look like they would survive the normal appropriations process. That is once Republicans realize they have failed in their attempt to derail the entire bill in the name of tax cuts they are unlikely to run around and oppose more narrow packages. That is I can see a Law Enforcement bill emerging, from this, and a Science bill, and a Homeland Security bill all that could draw bi-partisan support as stand-alone legislation. An Education package might be harder lifting, but you can count on Republican governors leaning heavily on their senators.
All in all a reasonable approach.