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Monday, September 24, 2007
One program that helps entrepreneurs get started and provides small business training, technical assistance and loans in agricultural communities is the Rural Enterprise Assistance Project (REAP) in the Center for Rural Affairs at Lyons, Nebraska.
REAP will get a big boost once a $250,000 federal earmark I was able to include in a funding bill gains final passage. This is good news for Nebraska but it didn’t just happen.
Your Senators and Representatives have to fight hard to get Washington to focus on Nebraska priorities. If we don’t, funding decisions get handed over to nameless, faceless career bureaucrats with little knowledge of or connection to Nebraskans and our needs at home.
Nebraskans send their federal tax dollars to Washington like everyone else. They have every right to expect that some of that money should be returned to meet our infrastructure needs, to address economic matters, and to support our local priorities.
In an effort to shed as much light on the process of securing earmarks for Nebraska priorities, I am posting the earmarks for Nebraska on my official Senate website.
By logging onto www.bennelson.senate.gov and clicking on the “NE Earmarks” button on the Home page, you may learn about the projects and follow them through the funding process. You are also invited to e mail me your comments on these earmarks.
This is an issue of transparency and integrity. If a project seems worthwhile or not so worthwhile, my hope is folks will let me know. This way, interested constituents can know beforehand what is being directed to Nebraska and for what priority.
Projects funded by my earmarks are located throughout the state and are particularly helpful in rural Nebraska which often struggles to find adequate resources to meet local needs. Earmarks in Nebraska have funded local priorities like nurse training in Norfolk, sewers in South Sioux City, the High Plains Regional Climate Center which researches weather and its impact on crop production, a program at York College to address the shortage of clinical social workers in central and western Nebraska, a statewide telehealth project to promote data integration among the hospitals, public health departments, and public health laboratories while improving quality and access to care, particularly in rural Nebraska, fighting meth and drug prevention statewide, and numerous scientific research earmarks for the University of Nebraska system.
Even President Bush included Nebraska earmarks in his budget directing millions to the Antelope Valley flood control project in Lincoln.
I support more transparency and disclosure when it comes to federal spending. My website will focus on Nebraska earmarks and serve as a resource to those seeking to track federal spending of this nature.
Earmarking is done within the federal budget and the funding comes from existing programs. Because earmarks constitute such a small portion of federal spending, banning earmarks is a better sound bite than a fiscal tool. Doing so will merely shift the authority over deciding where your federal tax dollars go away from the people you elect to office and to Washington bureaucrats.
Having Senators advocate on your behalf is one way for small states like Nebraska to compete against big states like California and New York to make sure that at least some of your tax dollars come back home to Nebraska to fund important and worthwhile projects that benefit our entire state.
EARMARKS CREATE JOBS & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN NEBRASKA
One of the challenges we face in rural Nebraska is being able to provide opportunities for our young people to open a business or find a good job so they don’t have to move away from their small towns.One program that helps entrepreneurs get started and provides small business training, technical assistance and loans in agricultural communities is the Rural Enterprise Assistance Project (REAP) in the Center for Rural Affairs at Lyons, Nebraska.
REAP will get a big boost once a $250,000 federal earmark I was able to include in a funding bill gains final passage. This is good news for Nebraska but it didn’t just happen.
Your Senators and Representatives have to fight hard to get Washington to focus on Nebraska priorities. If we don’t, funding decisions get handed over to nameless, faceless career bureaucrats with little knowledge of or connection to Nebraskans and our needs at home.
Nebraskans send their federal tax dollars to Washington like everyone else. They have every right to expect that some of that money should be returned to meet our infrastructure needs, to address economic matters, and to support our local priorities.
In an effort to shed as much light on the process of securing earmarks for Nebraska priorities, I am posting the earmarks for Nebraska on my official Senate website.
By logging onto www.bennelson.senate.gov and clicking on the “NE Earmarks” button on the Home page, you may learn about the projects and follow them through the funding process. You are also invited to e mail me your comments on these earmarks.
This is an issue of transparency and integrity. If a project seems worthwhile or not so worthwhile, my hope is folks will let me know. This way, interested constituents can know beforehand what is being directed to Nebraska and for what priority.
Projects funded by my earmarks are located throughout the state and are particularly helpful in rural Nebraska which often struggles to find adequate resources to meet local needs. Earmarks in Nebraska have funded local priorities like nurse training in Norfolk, sewers in South Sioux City, the High Plains Regional Climate Center which researches weather and its impact on crop production, a program at York College to address the shortage of clinical social workers in central and western Nebraska, a statewide telehealth project to promote data integration among the hospitals, public health departments, and public health laboratories while improving quality and access to care, particularly in rural Nebraska, fighting meth and drug prevention statewide, and numerous scientific research earmarks for the University of Nebraska system.
Even President Bush included Nebraska earmarks in his budget directing millions to the Antelope Valley flood control project in Lincoln.
I support more transparency and disclosure when it comes to federal spending. My website will focus on Nebraska earmarks and serve as a resource to those seeking to track federal spending of this nature.
Earmarking is done within the federal budget and the funding comes from existing programs. Because earmarks constitute such a small portion of federal spending, banning earmarks is a better sound bite than a fiscal tool. Doing so will merely shift the authority over deciding where your federal tax dollars go away from the people you elect to office and to Washington bureaucrats.
Having Senators advocate on your behalf is one way for small states like Nebraska to compete against big states like California and New York to make sure that at least some of your tax dollars come back home to Nebraska to fund important and worthwhile projects that benefit our entire state.
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