Shutdown Deal Includes Nearly $3 Billion For Kentucky Dam Project

[applegrove]

Shutdown Deal Includes Nearly $3 Billion For Kentucky Dam Project

by John Stanton at Buzz Feed

http://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanton/shutdown-deal-includes-nearly-3-billion-for-kentucky-dam-pro

"SNIP...............................


WASHINGTON — A deal to reopen the government and avert a debt default also includes language authorizing more than $2.8 billion in funding for a locks and dam project championed in the past by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The provision would steer $2.918 billion in funding to the Army Corps of Engineers for the Olmsted dam and lock project on the Ohio River, and would benefit Kentucky, Tennessee, and Illinois.

The language is only one of several provisions lawmakers have tucked into the must pass spending and debt bill which would reopen the government through Jan. 15 and extend the nation’s credit line until the middle of February.

According to a Sen. Lamar Alexander, the provision was needed to ensure $160 million in contracts are not cancelled by the Army Corps of Engineers.



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[applegrove]

1. Is this what you call an earmark?

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. yup

[Squinch]

2. So they got their ransom after all.

[arely staircase]

14. nope. more like a public works project

the kind of Keynesian economics this president has always favored. And the fact it is in Kentucky is just old time LBJ style politicd on the part of this brilliant, bad ass president.

[Shivering Jemmy]

4. Good. Earmarks are good.

We need more earmarks.

[joshcryer]

20. I'll take a bridge to nowhere for every ten to somewhere

[Boom Sound 416]

5. Dam

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. That's what's called stimulus spending, or Keynesianism

Not quite sure why anybody on the Left would object to it.

[applegrove]

9. I object to the hypocrisy of wanting to cut the debt or end Obamacare

at the point of a gun and then going for government help in the very same bill that ends the ransom.

[Squinch]

21. Exactly. The spending is fine. The people asking for it

have a lot of damn gall given the context in which they are asking for it.

[arely staircase]

11. yeah no shit

That is a good thing. Lets have some more public works projects.

[PeteSelman]

7. The usefulness of earmarks.

A big part of the problem has been their elimination.

[applegrove]

10. Oh I agree you cannot get republicans to do anything without an earmark.

[PeteSelman]

23. Earmarks work for everyone.

On both sides.

Lol @ the two kinds of people.

[onehandle]

8. Kentucky doesn't deserve a dime in federal money, because of who they elect. nt

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. It might also be useful to ask whether they actually need to repair this dam

Government does actually do something, unlike the Teabaggers suppose. There is actually a need for dam repair from time to time.

[joshcryer]

16. not how it works

i

[onehandle]

18. I'm just saying let red states return to the Confederacy they want.

Dump them.

[BluegrassStateBlues]

12. Dam straight. nt

[ProSense]

15. That's going to upset teabaggers even more. Also,

Kentucky has a Democratic governor who accepted the Medicaid expansion, which is really pissing off the teabaggers.

<...>

Here's another comment from the same poster that also helps further explain their thinking:

wexwuther

Kentucky can go to hell in a handbasket. The people there are flocking to the ACA. We should bring to this fight the discipline of the union workers who hold firm on their strikes and suffer on principle. There can be no worse patriotic move right now than to sign up for Obamacare just to save a few hundred bucks a month. It will end up costing America much more than that.

Takes a minute to truly unpack that one. Everyone who might save money using Obamacare is unpatriotic, destroying America and deserves to rot in Hell for all eternity. Almost wish this was some kind of a liberal plant but the problem is I've met people who think just like this. From the polling it appears the country is finally waking up to the ugly truth of it.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/16/1247830/-Best-Redstate-comment-for-today

Kentucky GOP Senators Were Wrong That State Didn’t Want Obamacare
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023864125

Kentucky's success makes a mockery of GOP Obamacare foes
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023779107

[SoCalDem]

17. quid pro quo

the price paid for saving the hostage's life...albeit after the amputation of a few limbs

[spanone]

19. something to assure mitch's re-election

[liberalmuse]

22. If it creates jobs, I'm okay with it.

Of course most of that money is going into corporate pockets and by coincidence, will end up in McConnell's campaign.