Yet more examples of how the "stimulus" bill has promoted pork
rather than growth.
Reports the New York Times:
A $14.7 million stimulus project to replace an airport on a
remote island in Alaska was one of several airport stimulus
projects that were questioned in an advisory issued last
weekby the inspector general of the Transportation
Department. The airport averages only 42 flights a month.
The advisory found that the Federal Aviation Administration had
awarded $38.5 million to low-priority airport projects of
questionable economic merit, and that it had awarded $15
million more to four airports whose operators had been cited in
the past for trouble managing federal grants. The aviation
agency selected the projects as part of a $1.1 billion stimulus
program for improving airports around the nation.
Two of the airports the inspector general cited were in Alaska.
The $14.7 million project calls for replacing the airport in
Ouzinkie, a village of around 170
people, mostly of Russian Aleut ancestry, located on an island
about 12 miles north of Kodiak. The second calls for spending
$13.9 million to replace the airport in Akiachak, a remote Yup'ik
Eskimo village in western Alaska with a population of
around 660.
The advisory said they were among several low-priority airport
projects that were selected in part because the
F.A.A. wanted to "ensure widespread geographic distribution
of funds," even though that was not a requirement of the
stimulus law, the advisory found.
What is truly amazing is that anyone could have believed that it
would have turned out any differently.
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).
