re just what is in the jobs pork bill in article c l um isf ncratl atlantaga ncr com mwilson ncratl atlantaga ncr com mark wilson writes this was in wed wsj start the white house seeking to mount public pressure on gop senators bombarded news outlets in some senator s home states with news releases warning that certain projects may not be funded if the billion stimulus bill isn t passed none of the projects mentioned are actually in the bill rather they are part of a wish list that may be funded from the billion in community development block grants end i could have sworn i heard a bunch of clintonites going on and on raving about how dishonest it was that the rebublicans were taking items from this wish list in order to ridicule this bill now that clinton is using that same list in order to garner support for the bill are you guys going to do the honorable thing and say that clinton is being dishonest as one of the clintonites cited above i ll try to clarify since this is not a case of clinton s dishonesty i won t necessarily defend him on other issues there were never any specific projects included in the community development block grant portion of the president s proposal congressional republicans in an effort to discredit the stimulus package selected what they felt were silly sounding projects from a wish list of potential projects prepared by the us mayors conference before the stimulus package was ever proposed the document in question was designed to pressure the white house to increase the size of the block grant proposal submitted to congress it didn t work the billion proposed in the stimulus package came nowhere close to covering the total estimated cost of the original wish list if it were passed communities would have to select which projects to fund and at what level in the case of spokane wa tom foley s home district no one ever expected to be able to refurbish a local swimming pool one of the republicans examples from the funds available in the stimulus package since the estimated cost of doing so exceeded the total amount of block grant funds the city would receive from the stimulus package for all projects the plan instead was to use the money on public housing construction and remodeling to cope with a severe housing shortage yup there are places where that is true the swimming pool improvements were near the bottom of a long list of priorities prepared by the city the million or so to be received would cover only a few of the most pressing priorities if the block grants are cut from the stimulus package it is these projects that will be affected by the lack of funds and that is why the clinton administration has been publicizing the issue a final point one may or may not like community block grants it is worth noting however that congressional republicans opposition to them is new since the nixon administration republicans have generally supported such grants as an alternative to targeted federal spending arguing that local governments are far better able to determine spending priorities than washington bureaucrats is it clear now or is this all too complicated to understand jsh steve hendricks domain steveh thor isc br com one thing about data it sure does cut uucp uunet isc br thor steveh the bulls t r hofferbert ma bell
