Coburn, McCain Cite Waste in Stimulus Spending

Daily News Article   —   Posted on December 9, 2009

(by Jim Myers, Tulsa World, Washington Bureau) WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn on Tuesday singled out river cruise boats in Oklahoma City and a research project at Oklahoma State University as he released [a] report [with Sen. McCain critical of stimulus funds going to “silly and shortsighted projects.”

“Across America families are making hard choices every day between competing priorities,” the Oklahoma Republican said. “Unfortunately, politicians in Washington refuse to make the same choices.”

Also released by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the report, “Stimulus Checkup,” covers 100 projects [they say are wasteful] across the U.S. totaling $7 billion.

Coming in at No. 18 is $1.8 million that will go to Oklahoma River Cruises, which has several boats ferrying passengers along a seven-mile run of river from around the Oklahoma City airport to close to downtown.

“Relatively few Oklahomans may benefit from the project,” Coburn’s report stated.  “The boats are averaging less than 12 passengers per trip despite being able to hold 35 passengers.”

His report also said the money was going to a “boat company,” but Michael Scroggins, public information manager for the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority, said the boats were purchased with federal funds by the local government agency.  Scroggins pointed out that Coburn keeps repeating information he retrieves from news reports instead of getting the information directly from the agency.

Half of the $1.8 million will be used for a maintenance facility to protect the boats, he said, and the other half will be used for operating the boats. Scroggins said Congress dedicated money for ferries in the stimulus legislation, adding the money would have gone to another city or state if the local agency had not used it.

As for the number of passengers, he said the program was launched last year, and those numbers are expected to rise as the river development continues.

The [Oklahoma State University] OSU project came in at No. 59 on the Coburn-McCain list.  Coburn’s report stated the National Science Foundation will pay $1.1 million for a professor and two investigators at OSU to study grandparent roles in Alaska. He said the money will go to fund travel to Alaska.

OSU defended the project.  “The project supports OSU’s land-grant mission of teaching, research and outreach and has implications for community programs far beyond Alaska,” said Gary Shutt, OSU’s director of communications. “It is an extension of a previous project by Dr. Tammy Henderson, who has a national reputation in family policy and gerontology.”

Shutt said the project will create two jobs on the campus of OSU, as well as provide funding to support research support staff.  “The work will advance knowledge that will not only benefit people in Alaska, but Oklahoma and the rest of the nation,” he said.  “This research also will enhance Dr. Henderson’s work with the Oklahoma Geriatric Education Center and Oklahoma Department of Human Services.” …

Other projects included a $5 million grant for an “almost empty” mall in Tennessee, $133 million in renovations to a federal building in Oregon, $2.2 million to a “money-losing” golf course in California, $943,190 in terrorism-prevention money to a Chicago-based dinner cruise company and $1.9 billion for a “failed” cleanup effort at a World War II-era nuclear site in Washington state.

Vice President Joe Biden [the self-proclaimed sheriff of the stimulus spending] also drew criticism at the senators’ press conference. “He is the sheriff,” McCain said of Biden.

He pointed to the current jobless rate [10% unemployment] and [1.4 trillion] national debt, adding the nation cannot afford to spend taxpayer dollars on projects that do not create jobs or promote real economic growth.

Liz Oxhorn, White House spokeswoman for the [Stimulus] Recovery Act, said the administration’s unprecedented transparency and accountability effort is blocking bad projects from getting Recovery Act funds.  “That effort is a huge success,” Oxhorn said.

She said the administration will look at all the projects cited by Coburn but added that his previous reports have been error-filled with projects that were nonexistent, never funded or not actually Recovery Act projects.  “So this latest report, too, should be taken with a grain of salt,” she said.

Oxhorn said a few of the stimulus projects may have been unwise but said that more than 50,000 have been approved so far. She also challenged Recovery Act critics to concede the real mistake was their opposition to the package whose sound projects have created up to 1.6 million jobs.

Write to Jim Myers at jim.myers@tulsaworld.com.

Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from Tulsa World. Visit the website at TulsaWorld.com.