WSJ: For GOP Rep, Earmarks and Business Come TogetherRep. Charles Taylor (R-NC) has a remarkable talent for steering federal dollars to benefit properties that he owns, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning.
As you read about the millions that Taylor has earmarked for himself ($11.4 million to widen a highway that runs through a resort town where his development companies own thousands of acres, $3.8 million for a park that is “directly in front of the Blue Ridge Savings Bank, flagship of his financial empire”), recall Taylor’s dogged opposition to federal money going to a 9/11 memorial. As chairman of the House Interior Appropriations subcommittee, Taylor was for years the sole impediment to releasing the $10 million in federal funds needed to buy the land for a memorial in Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed.
Taylor’s opposition to the effort, The Washington Post explained at the time, “comes down to principle: The federal government is already the largest landowner in the country, and he believes that no additional tax dollars should go to more land buying for this or any other memorial.”
When challenged on his earmarks by the Journal, Taylor sounds a different principle:
“The same tax dollars would be spent,” [Taylor] said through a spokesman. “The decisions about where and how much would just be left to unelected bureaucrats.”
God forbid they’d spend the money on something meaningful to taxpayers, instead of beautifying the view out his bank’s front window.
