Save America’s Treasures was one of the 60 programs proposed for elimination in President Obama’s 2011 Terminations, Reductions, and Savings report. Released in February 2010, the report recommended the elimination of the program because it “has not demonstrated how it contributes to nationwide historic preservation goals.”  Its demise would allow the National Park Service to“focus resources on managing national parks and other activities that most closely align with its core mission.”  Citizens Against Government Waste has long criticized the program, which has been the source of tens of millions of dollars in pork since 2001.

The program was never intended to last this long. Save America’s Treasures was started in 1999 by President Bill Clinton as a two-year program to commemorate the millennium by restoring historic documents and buildings.Funds were initially provided for the restoration of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the flag that inspired our national anthem, as well as money to be distributed across the country based on a competitive application process. However, Congress quickly latched on to the program as an easy source of pork. For fiscal year (FY) 2001, Congress earmarked $20 million of the program’s $35 million budget, or 57 percent.

President Bush unsuccessfully tried to end the program in 2002. The National Park Service’s FY 2002 budget stated that the program “[has] been completed and [is] therefore not proposed for funding in 2002.” However, Congress ignored this request, appropriating $30 million for the program. Funding continued at this level through FY 2007, even though the FY 2006 budget called for only $15 million and the FY 2007 budget called for just $14.8 million. During these years, an average of 52.6 percent of the program’s budget was earmarked. Congress reduced the budget slightly in FY 2008-2010, but even in those years appropriated at least $5 million more than was requested, and earmarked an average of 48.7 percent of the budget.

This bloated, pork-heavy program has dragged on 10 years longer than originally intended. President Obama is likely to once again propose its elimination in the FY 2012 budget. However, Congress is unlikely to let the program die. The House version of the Interior and the Environment Appropriations Actcontains$6.25 million for the Save America’s Treasures program.  The country will never be able to rid itself of government waste if members of Congress refuse to let go of their precious pork programs.

  -- Lauren Hartman