What To Do With $70 Billion in Unspent Earmarks

Senator Tom Coburn has announced that the federal government has more than $70 billion in unspent earmarks on its books that must account for. This includes monies that were designated for state and local projects that those localities later chose not to do.

The $70 billion figure is money that's been unspent for years, including $13 billion in road-building money that was earmarked to the wrong places, or for projects that states and localities no longer want to build.

In one case Mr. Coburn said $29 million was dedicated to a highway interchange in Newport News, Va., in 1998, but the state abandoned the project. The congressman who sponsored the earmark died in 2000, but the money remains unspent.

In another case Atlanta is still holding onto $2.7 million in funding that was allowed to be spent only on the 1996 Olympics.

"A dollar taken from the taxpayers left unspent is a dollar not needed by the government or a dollar that did not go to someone in need," Mr. Coburn said in a letter accompanying his report. "It represents a failure to budget wisely."

That's a small sum of the total federal budget and the ongoing deficit, but it's a not insignificant sum of money that could go to any number of major infrastructure projects around the nation.

It could secure the financing (or outright pay for) for any number of bridge and tunnel projects and other critical infrastructure projects. That includes air traffic control system upgrades that would boost efficiencies for the airlines and travelers by reducing congestion at airports and reduce the amount of fuel needed to reach any number of destinations. The economic benefits of upgrading the air traffic control system could reach into the billions of dollars annually as flight times are cut by routing planes more directly to their destinations.

It could help fully fund the entire 2d Avenue Subway, which would enable hundreds of thousands of commuters to more easily reach their destinations in New York City. It could fund the replacement spans for the Tappan Zee, Goethals Bridges, or the Pulaski Skyway. It could mean the construction of the Gateway Tunnel and Portal Bridges on the NEC.

It could mean construction of replacement spans for hundreds of deficient bridges, overpasses, and roads around the nation.

It could mean addressing deteriorating conditions of sanitary sewers and water delivery systems.

It could mean addressing funding shortfalls for National Park infrastructure, such as rehabilitating roads, visitor centers, and habitat restoration.

All of these have tangible economic benefits - not only immediate benefits due to construction work and the jobs created, but the long term benefits of improving and maintaining long-neglected infrastructure.

This is one of the major shortfalls of the ARRA of 2009 - it didn't sufficiently address infrastructure work, despite plenty of shovel-ready projects around the nation that would have benefited from the work.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 158

It looks like the Port Authority and the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum have come to an agreement on construction costs. Payments will begin going out to subcontractors starting today, but the deal still requires finalization and approval by the Port Authority's Board.

The subcontractors were caught in the middle of a dispute between the Port, which owns the World Trade Center site, and museum officials over who is responsible for $150 million in costs on the project. They have been negotiating with the Port Authority, because it signed their contracts.

Representatives from the Port and the museum didn't return calls for comment.

Sources said the two are close to working out an agreement, and that Port officials may have a deal to report to its board by its meeting next Thursday. However, the two sides have been saying for weeks that a settlement was within reach.

Mr. Berger said subcontractors are owed a total of $50 million. However, the majority of that stems from work that was changed from the original tasks, making billing a longer process.

The downside is that the delays pushed completion of the museum to June or July 2013.

Subcontractors have been screwed through this whole process since they're at the whims of the Port Authority, which is overseeing the construction.

This deal would seem to end what was a dispute that ranged more than $440 million between what the Port Authority claimed it was owed and what the Museum Foundation says it was owed.

Yet, even if the museum construction is completed next year, funding for maintaining its operation has yet to materialize and Congressional Republicans, led by Tom Coburn, has shown an unwillingness to fund the memorial/museum operations. Funding should be made available for the National 9/11 memorial. This is the site of the nation's worst terrorist attacks.

Coburn can qualify his comments any way he wants, but the bottom line is that he's blocking funding for the the memorial and museum funding.

Sen. Tom Coburn Rejects Funding For WTC Museum

Funding for the WTC Museum and Memorial has been a longstanding problem. This is a national memorial and shrine to those who were killed in the attacks, and a museum to educate future generations as to what happened. So it is extremely disappointing to see that Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican is blocking a $20 million funding proposal of the WTC memorial and museum.

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, is blocking $20 million a year in annual taxpayer funding for the National September 11 Memorial.

“The legislation creates a permanent duplicative federal funding stream for a privately operated facility,” Coburn wrote in a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell. “The museum has received more than $75 million in federal assistance over the past two years and remains eligible to apply for additional funds from a variety of federal programs if necessary. Yet, this legislation authorizes at least $200 million over the next ten years for the effort, but does not include any provision to pay for these potential costs, adding to our more than $15 trillion debt.”

Almost 2 million people from around the world have visited the Memorial since it opened on the 10-year anniversary of the attacks. Coburn makes it clear he has no objection to the memorial and museum, just the annual federal funding.

“The events of September 11 hold a special place in our nation’s history and in each of our hearts,” Coburn wrote. “The national and personal significance of this tragic day has been, and continue to be, appropriately memorialized and remembered.”

“A full accounting of previously awarded federal funding, as well as detailed breakdown of the project with itemized cost estimates, would be useful for learning more about current sources of funding, and potential need for this legislation,” Coburn wrote.

Funding should be made available for the National 9/11 memorial. This is the site of the nation's worst terrorist attacks.

Coburn can qualify his comments any way he wants, but the bottom line is that he's blocking funding for the the memorial and museum funding.

All this isn't to say that the memorial and museum could not be more efficiently managed; it hasn't. Compensation for officials at the Memorial Foundation have soared and cost controls are sorely needed. However, if the choice is between imposing fees to access the memorial and the museum or finding federal funding to cover operating costs, this should be funded.

This is something I've written about in the past - if fees need to be imposed to cover costs at the museum and memorial, it should be imposed on parking fees for tour buses and cars (an additional fee could be imposed on parking garages in Lower Manhattan and on tour buses that deliver tourists to the area).