◼ With nothing to lose, outgoing legislators, whichever way they voted, no doubt had an easier time with their decision, said Tracy Carlton, a Republican political strategist.
“Some of them stuck to their guns, and said, ‘no way,’” he said. “Others saw the opportunity to fund pet projects one last time and took advantage of it. Who can blame them?”
That group includes Rep. Dan Maffei, a New York Democrat who lost in November but spearheaded funding in the National Defense Authorization Act for the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, N.Y. The NDAA goes hand-in-hand with the cromnibus as the government’s major spending bills.
Projects like the Tubman park drew the ire of fiscal conservatives. It’s not that a museum honoring the former slave, abolitionist and underground railroad legend might not be worthy. But funding of projects that have little, or nothing, to do with defense shouldn’t be in a defense bill, they say.
‘Land Grab’
What’s worse, says Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), is that the project is part of an “extreme federal land grab” that puts hundreds of thousands of acres under federal control.
The NDAA provisions would designate nearly 250,000 acres of new wilderness, protect tens of thousands of additional acres from drilling and mining, and create a slew of new and expanded national parks and reserves.
The Tubman park provision, Maffei said in a statement, is “a huge victory for Auburn and all of Central New York.”
Therein lies the problem, conservatives and watchdog groups say.
“Everyone talks a good game about cutting spending and trimming the fat, but when it comes to their own district, God forbid anyone mess with the pork,” Carlton said.
