Lost in all of the finger-pointing about which party would be to blame for a government shutdown is the bipartisan push in Congress to keep funding thousands of home state projects.
Georgia lawmakers in Congress are of three distinct flavors when it comes to budget “earmarks” — targeted federal spending, often on pet projects. Some fully embrace them. Others lend their name to just a few requests. And one group wants nothing to do with them.
“I have not asked for earmarks,” said U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, R-Tifton, who again stayed away from this year’s earmark process.
“I’m not saying that every earmark in there is bad,” Scott said just off the U.S. House floor, “but I would tell you that we would all do the taxpayers a service, I think, by slowing down the spending.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
On the other side of the coin, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is hoping that $556 million in military construction projects he backed for various Georgia bases will survive a House-Senate negotiation.
On the Senate floor this summer, Ossoff trumpeted that local spending, including $28 million to fix a control tower at Robins Air Force Base, which happens to be in Scott’s district.
“It enhances our military readiness,” Ossoff said of the military construction funds, which would build everything from a new elementary school at Fort Benning to military barracks at Fort Stewart, and a $119 million expansion project at the Kings Bay submarine base.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
For Georgia lawmakers who back earmarks, a lot is at stake in what happens with this government funding dispute. There is all sorts of money for projects, big and small.
U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons Island, who is challenging Ossoff in next year’s Senate race, wants to secure $5 million for a fire station on Tybee Island and $5 million to expand I-16 near Savannah.
One of the most popular earmark bills in the House covers transportation funding, where Georgia lawmakers have 56 projects spread out across the state. Four Republican House members — Scott, Andrew Clyde, Mike Collins and Rick Allen — refused to ask for any local items.
That bill includes everything from $1.2 million for transit in South Cobb, to $1 million for a pedestrian bridge on Cobb Parkway, to $638,000 for stormwater work at the University of West Georgia to $850,000 for the Gwinnett County Loop Trail.
But will these projects actually get funded?
Back in March, Republican leaders tossed many of those same earmarks overboard, approving a six-month funding bill without local projects championed by both parties.
A repeat without earmarks wouldn’t surprise anyone. This fight is about much more than just a government shutdown.
Jamie Dupree has covered national politics and Congress from Washington, D.C., since the Reagan administration. His column appears weekly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For more, check out his Capitol Hill newsletter at jamiedupree.substack.com
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