!HEADLINES!
John Kerry has TAKEN ("earmarked") $20 million ($25M?) out of the DEFENSE budget—and has earmarked it such that it can't be line-item veto'ed—to use towards building THE TED KENNEDY LIBRARY on the University of Mass. THE ONLY WAY TO OBJECT TO IT IS TO VOTE DOWN THE BILL—WHICH VOTES DOWN THE REST OF THE DEFENSE EXPENDITURE!!!!
OUR REPRESENTATIVES AT THEIR FINEST MOST CLEVER!
(I'VE STARTED AN "OVERWHELM-HIS-EMAIL CAMPAIGN", AND HOPE YOU WILL TRY ALONG WITH ME.
WE CANNOT LET THIS BE THE END OF THIS.)
THIS IS NOW (SEE BELOW—WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LOCAL FUNDRAISING??):
Kerry asks $20m for Kennedy institute
Fiscal groups criticize military bill earmark
By Bryan Bender
Globe Staff / September 25, 2009
WASHINGTON - A large military spending bill moving through Congress contains a little-noticed outlay for Boston that has nothing to do with national defense: $20 million for an educational institute honoring late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
The earmark, tucked into the defense bill at the request of Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, requires US taxpayers to help the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate realize its goal of building a repository for Kennedy's papers and an accompanying civic learning center on the University of Massachusetts at Boston campus in Dorchester, next to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.
The item is drawing fire from fiscal watchdog groups, who assert that military funds should not be raided to pay for an institution that has nothing to do with improving military readiness.
"Whatever beneficial value civic education may have, it's hard to see why the Defense Department should pay for it,'' said Laura Peterson, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington. "It would seem the location of this hefty earmark has more to do with the powerful position of its sponsor than [the Defense Department's] responsibility to educate elementary school children.''
Kerry strongly defended the insertion of the $20 million earmark yesterday. He requested that it be included in the $360 billion defense budget, he said, to recognize Kennedy's long tenure on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The institute will serve as a focal point for the late Massachusetts senator's legacy, much as presidential libraries do. It will house Kennedy's official papers and oral histories from the nearly half-century he served in the Senate. With a museum and exhibit space, it also will be dedicated to educating the general public, students, teachers, new US senators, and Senate staff about the role and importance of the Senate in American political life. The institute plans to host an annual "Summer Senate'' for high school students from across the nation.
The $20 million earmark would cover as much as 40 percent of the institute's initial fund-raising goal.
Beyond raising questions about the practice of slipping earmarks into bills in Congress, the provision also presents a potential ethical question for Paul Kirk, the longtime Kennedy aide Governor Deval Patrick appointed to fill the late senator's seat yesterday.
Kirk, who stepped down yesterday as chairman of the JFK Library Foundation, has also served as a member of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute board and has played a key role in helping plan and raise funds for the new center. If he casts a vote in favor of the defense bill, he also will be voting in favor of an institute to which he has had close personal and professional connections.Continued...
A spokeswoman for Kirk, Stephanie Cutter, said yesterday that he does not see his roles as conflicting.
"Mr. Kirk expects to vote on every issue important to the people of Massachusetts. He resigned from the Edward M. Kennedy Institute board at 8 a.m. this morning, so we don't expect a conflict to exist, but of course he'll comply fully with the ethics rules of the Senate,'' Cutter said in an e-mailed statement. She did not respond to a question about what role, if any, he played in securing the $20 million earmark.
Kirk is not running in the January special election for a new senator to fill out the remainder of Kennedy's term. He has not yet said whether he intends to return to the JFK Library Foundation once his interim Senate appointment expires.
At Kerry's request, Senator Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, added the $20 million earmark to the defense bill, congressional aides said. The funding would come on top of $5 million secured with Kerry's help earlier this year in a Labor Department spending bill, which provided money for the institute's planning and design.
The center had raised an additional $20 million in private donations earlier this year, and more money has been contributed by members of the public since Kennedy's death last month from brain cancer, said Joe Ganley, an institute spokesman. Ultimately, Ganley said, the majority of the center's funding will come from private donors, not taxpayers. He said many of Boston's most influential civic leaders, including businessman Jack Connors, are helping to raise funds.
The institute's president, and it's only staff member so far, is Peter Meade, a former Blue Cross-Blue Shield executive who also serves on the board of the JFK Library Foundation. Meade was unavailable for comment yesterday, Ganley said.
Using the national defense budget for such earmarks is considered a particular affront by those advocating for fiscal discipline in the midst of two wars that are straining Pentagon coffers. Overall, the Senate version of the bill includes 778 earmarks worth $2.65 billion, including a number that have little or nothing to do with military matters.
A major concern is what gets cut from the Pentagon budget to make room for things like the Kennedy institute, said Winslow Wheeler, director of the Strauss Military Reform Project at the left-leaning Center for Defense Information in Washington.
"The committee did not add money to the bill to pay for its billions of dollars in pork,'' Wheeler said.
A spokesman for Inouye declined to explain why the Kennedy institute earmark was inserted into the Pentagon budget, rather than into an education bill or other piece of legislation. In a statement released by his office, Inouye said, "It is my sincere hope that many of these students will be inspired to seek a life of public service, with the same spirit of patriotism and love of country that I saw each and every day from Senator Kennedy.''
While Kerry said using the defense budget to fund Kennedy's institute was a tribute to his "leadership on military technology, weapons systems, and safety equipment for our troops,'' Wheeler said he believes there is a more practical reason.
"It's a natural for Kerry to go to Inouye on this,'' Wheeler said. "If it's in the defense bill it must be a good idea. And the defense bill is sure to pass. He wanted a fast vehicle to get it enacted.''
Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com 
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
THIS WAS THEN:
Feds spending millions on Kennedy legacy in Mass.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press Writer
·
BOSTON — More than one out of every five dollars of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks from a $410 billion federal spending package is going to help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys.
The bill includes $5.8 million for the planning and design of a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy
Institute for the Senate. The funding may also help support an endowment for the institute.
The bill also includes $22 million to expand facilities at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum and $5 million more for a new gateway to the Boston Harbor Islands on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a park system in downtown Boston named after Kennedy's mother and built on land opened up by the Big Dig highway project.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Kennedy, who at 77 is battling brain cancer, said he hadn't requested the money for the library and institute, and that there are dozens of other earmarks in the spending bill for homeless services and community health centers.
The $22 million JFK library earmark was sponsored by fellow Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry, who is also a top sponsor for the money for the Kennedy Senate Institute. Kerry defended the library project, which he said is needed to upgrade the facility.
"This National Archives project will eliminate the worst archival storage space problem in the presidential library system and it will facilitate six years of work to expand the library," Kerry said in a statement. "This shovel-ready project will also bring much-needed jobs to the area."
A proposal to build a national institute on the U.S. Senate and to name it after Kennedy has been under discussion since 2003, but accelerated after Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer.
Local officials last year announced they were seeking up to $100 million to build the institute, which they said would focus on the Senate in general and Kennedy's more than four decades of service to the body. The facility will be located in Boston on a four-acre plot near the JFK library.
About $20 million has already been raised for the institute, including contributions from drug companies, insurance companies and hospitals. Tentative plans called for a replica of the Senate chamber itself, as well as programs to train new senators.
The list of earmarks provided by Kennedy, Kerry and the state's all-Democratic congressional delegation highlights programs throughout the state, including $3 million to preserve New England fisheries; $1.7 million for land acquisition at Cape Cod National Seashore; and $333,000 to study any links between environmental pollutants and breast cancer.
"These funds will create jobs that are desperately needed, and will provide lasting benefits for all our citizens long into the future," Kennedy said in statement accompanying a list of earmarks.
The billions in earmarks in the federal spending bill have been a source of contention.
President Barack Obama signed the bill which he described as imperfect. He said it must signal an "end to the old way of doing business."
Critics led by Republican Sen. John McCain have denounced the 8,000 pet project contained in the bill as pork.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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