Young made the comments at about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday night, according to
Democratic sources, half an hour before Democrats gave up on their
torturous attempt to pass the Homeland Security spending bill that
Republicans successfully bogged down with parliamentary procedures.
...................................................................................................
“We had the Cunningham affair, then the bridge-to-nowhere, which
caused a lot of heartburn around the country; and now, just recently,
we have another story suggesting that the committee chairman then, the
gentleman from Alaska, inserted a project for Florida.”
.............................................................................................
“It took you a couple of years to find out what Duke Cunningham did,”
Obey told reporters yesterday.
“It took a year to find Don Young’s highway in Florida.”
Making the comments was a bold move for Young, who has been facing
scrutiny on a number of fronts recently.
Young has close ties to former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is in jail
and cooperating with federal prosecutors before facing sentencing on
another charge.
In April, Mark Zachares, a former Young staffer and Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands employee, pleaded guilty to a list of
charges stemming from his involvement in the Abramoff scandal.
Media reports also have scrutinized his involvement in setting aside
earmarks for a pipeline project that benefited a company that employed
Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens’s (R) son, Ben.
Last week, The New York Times published a story about Young’s role in
securing a $10 million earmark for Florida’s Coconut Road and how it
benefited one of his campaign contributors.
.......................................................................................................
“Congressman Young’s boondoggles are nothing to be ‘proud’ of —
wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on campaign contributors’ pet
projects instead of securing our nation is scandalous,” the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, said
in a release.
“Congressman Young seems to have taken the ‘bridge to nowhere’ to the
land of delusion.”
Watchdog groups, the media and conservative groups panned the
so-called bridge-to-nowhere when it was uncovered in the bill in late
2005.
The Heritage Foundation called it a “national embarrassment.”
The bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population
8,900) with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50) at a
cost to federal taxpayers of $320 million, by way of three separate
earmarks that Young and Stevens worked to insert into the 2005
transportation bill when Young was chairman of the panel.
From The Hill, 6/14/07:
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/young-proud-of-bridge-to-nowhere-other-earmarks-2007-06-14.html
Young ‘proud’ of ‘bridge to nowhere,’ other earmarks
By Susan Crabtree
Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) took to the floor late Tuesday night to
defend his earmark for the infamous “bridge to nowhere,” and another
that secured $10 million for a road in Florida that benefited a
campaign contributor.
“I was always proud of my earmarks. I believe in earmarks, always
have, as long as they are exposed. But don’t you ever call that a
scandal,” he said.
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Your money now belongs to Repug Don "Porky" Young, folks.
Harry
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