Even though Sen. Robert Dole is the most powerful Republican in Congress, Rep. Harris Fawell (R-Ill.) is not afraid to tackle him on the issue of pork.
Dole, the Senate minority leader, has been railing against pet spending projects in President Clinton’s proposed $16.3 billion economic stimulus package. Meanwhile, Fawell, a Naperville Republican with a congressional reputation as a pork-buster, is pushing his latest effort that would eliminate 747 projects being sponsored in Congress.
The projects targeted include 17 in Kansas, Dole’s home state, as well as 16 in Fawell’s home state. He said passage of the bill would save taxpayers $1.9 billion.
According to Fawell, the projects were added to appropriations measures by various members of Congress without the required review in hearings by the committees that have the authority to fund them.
Fawell this week declined an invitation to visit the biggest Kansas project in his bill: the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson.
It will receive a $4 million grant unless his bill passes, and a Hutchinson newspaper offered Fawell an expenses-paid trip, including chauffeur service, to tour the space museum.
“He doesn’t accept many free trips either from the government or private groups,” said Alan Mertz, Fawell’s chief of staff.
The Cosmosphere grant, secured by Dole, would help finance the space center’s 65,000-square-foot addition to enhance educational programs for more than 50,000 students and teachers who visit the Cosmosphere each year.
“There are a tremendous number of meritorious projects throughout the country that are competing for a very small amount of money,” Mertz said. “A lot of meritorious projects don’t get funded because they are in states that don’t have as much clout as Kansas.”
Passage of such a bill isn’t always the final word on a pet project.
The bill sponsored by Fawell last year and supported by former President George Bush cut a $7.7 million grant to Kansas State University-Salina when passed. However, the grant was restored when members of the House and Senate met to iron out a federal spending compromise.
