Testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security
April 5, 2006
by: Tom Schatz

Testimony

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the 1.2 million members and supporters of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW).  We are grateful to have the chance to expose the excessive waste that flows into earmarked museum projects.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, CAGW has been cataloguing earmarks and reporting them in our Congressional Pig Book since 1991.  The seven- point criteria, developed in conjunction with the bipartisan Congressional Porkbusters Coalition, was created to aid in classifying projects as pork-barrel spending. These criteria are:

• The project was requested by only one member of Congress;
•  The project was not specifically authorized;
• The project was not competitively awarded;
•  The project was not requested by the President;
•  The project greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
• The project was not the subject of a hearing; and,
• The project only serves a local or special interest.

In our first year, CAGW recorded 546 projects totaling $3.1 billion.  Unfortunately, those numbers have grown exponentially.  In fiscal year 2006, appropriators funded 9,963 projects, totaling $29 billion in pork.

As funding continues to grow for the war on terrorism and unforeseen events such as Hurricane Katrina, the federal government must start exercising fiscal restraint and curb the desire to fund pet projects.  Some of the more egregious examples of pork-barrel spending come in the form of funding for museum projects.  Since 1995, appropriators have poured $527.4 million into museum- related earmarks, with a total of $27.3 million in fiscal year 2006. 

One example, The Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia has received $5.2 million since 2001.  This museum was created with the intent to establish hands on learning for children.  Although the museum has a $10 admission fee, appropriators continue to stick taxpayers with the bill.  Taxpayers wallets have been touched enough.

In fiscal year 2005 taxpayers paid $1.5 million for the Anchorage Museum of History and Art’s Transit Intermodel Depot.  In this case, not only were the taxpayers responsible for the costs of the museum, but they also paid the bill for a bus stop that lies near the building.  The director of public transportation in Anchorage, Tom Wilson, expressed his disbelief and concern about how to spend the money.  In a May 2005 MSNBC article Wilson claimed, “It is going to be a showpiece stop.  We have a senator (Ted Stevens) that gave us the money and I certainly won’t want to appear ungrateful.”  However, Wilson was also concerned that the public would view the first-class bus stop as wasteful and insisted that he would only spend what was necessary.  He stated, “If it only takes us $500,000 to do it, that’s what we will spend.”  Five-hundred thousand dollars is still about 50 times the average amount spent on a bus stop. 

Another example, is the Youth Health Museum, also known as the Youzeum, in Boone County, Missouri which received $750,000 in fiscal year 2006.  Although the idea for this museum was created more than a decade ago, a location for the project was not established until September 2003.  The president of the museum board claims that the lack of location was actually positive because it allowed the organization the chance to expand the center.  However, taxpayers are consistently footing the bill for excessive time spent on these types of projects.

It is bad enough that these projects receive a one-time appropriation, but they often receive multiple earmarks in one fiscal year.  For example, in fiscal 2006, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services received $550,000 for construction of a museum and $600,000 for museum expansion.  This project was guilty of the same offense in fiscal year 2005 when it received $100,000 for exhibits and museum programs and $169,750 for construction of the museum.

Earlier today we released the 2006 Congressional Pig Book.  Among the 9,963 projects totaling $29 billion, there was the poster child of pork, the Sparta Teapot Museum, located in Sparta, North Carolina.  Like so many other museum projects, the teapot museum is responsible for a double appropriation in fiscal year 2006.  Both the city of Sparta and New River Community Partners, Inc., the company responsible for the construction of the museum, received $250,000 for the teapot museum.  Supporters of the project claim that the museum “will expose its visitors to an unexpected art form- the teapot.” 

The museum was established in the hope that it would increase tourism to the economically deficient town.  Officials from the New River Community Partners project that the museum will attract 60,000 additional visitors to Sparta, a town with a population of 1,118.  However, one official noted that there is no way of determining whether or not the museum will draw substantial crowds.  State Representative Jim Harrell referred to the museum as a crap shoot.  Regardless of the circumstances, taxpayers do not deserve to see their hard-earned money going towards a crap shoot.

A December 2005 Wall Street Journal article noted that rural museums are becoming an entity of the past.  As visitor numbers begin to decline, the demand for smaller museums in rural areas is drastically declining.  If this is the case, why are appropriators continuing to pour funding into these declining projects?  Without a steady stream of tourists, these museums are not able to self-sustain and will continue to rely on government funding to keep them afloat. 

It is clear that the funding going towards these museum projects is unnecessary and excessive. The appropriators must start demonstrating some fiscal responsibility and exercising fiscal restraint in order to meet the necessary monetary demands that face this country.

I thank you for the opportunity to testify.