From the Mitchell Daily Republic:
The recent hubbub that helped sink a congressional earmark for a Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service and Representative Democracy at South Dakota State University intrigued the director of a Mitchell facility named for George McGovern, which benefited from nearly $3 million in federal money.
Dakota Wesleyan University’s George and Eleanor McGovern Library and Center for Leadership and Public Service was dedicated last year with the help of luminaries including former president Bill Clinton. Before the $8.5 million facility opened, it received three federal appropriations of just less than $1 million each.
At the time the McGovern funding was announced, it was not controversial. But this year, when $1 million for the Daschle center was inserted into a congressional spending bill, it sparked a brouhaha. Republicans in particular criticized the Daschle earmark as an abuse of the congressional funding process.
Don Simmons, director of the McGovern Center, said there was more to the Daschle controversy than a dispute about rules and abuses of the system.
Since earmarks were used by the Democrats in 2006 to argue that the Republicans were corrupt, I find this statement my Simmons more than a little phony:
Simmons said the economic value of places like the McGovern Library may be one reason they’re typically not criticized as wasteful places to spend government money.
"Earmarks are good for South Dakota," Simmons said. "Look at the economic impact of the McGovern Library, with the number of visitors it attracts and the new employees that the university hired, and multiply that over 30 or 40 years."
People in South Dakota recognize the value of such a facility, Simmons said, adding that the controversy over the Daschle earmark appeared to be driven by out-of-state politicians.
"My thought would be that this is some partisan ill feelings coming from out of state."
I can’t think of anything more partisan than those who say; if Republicans do it, it is wrong, if Democrats do it, it is OK.
My position is that earmarks are a violation of the traditional American principle of a limited government. Both sides are wrong by using the earmark process. And both sides are wrong when they promote the idea of "economic development" via government funding. The taxes used as the source of the funding is "economic undevelopment" to the taxpayers. Instead of those hard-working Americans spending their hard-erned money, the government takes it through taxes and spends it for us. And the government as gotten so big that the taxpayers don’t know how their money is being spent.
Clearly, economic development via the government is too much like socialism. And the idea that "Earmarks are good for South Dakota" is patently false. That mindset sets the tone that we cannot take care of ourselves. That defeatist mindset is "not" good for South Dakota. If government dependency is George McGovern’s legacy for South Dakota, then I am embarrassed.
A distinction not covered by the report is that the Daschle earmark was going to a public and secular University (SDSU). DWU is a private Methodist University. Can you imagine the outrage from the left if a Christian conservative was so honored with $3 million dollars going to a private religious organization. The out of state separation of church and state radicals would be crying foul, and perhaps be issuing a court challenge. Simmons needs to understand that partisan politics cuts both ways and is as much in state as it is out of state.
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