Can an honorary degree from a university be considered quid pro quo?
The Washington Post is reporting that House Speaker Dennis Hastert's chief of staff, Scott B. Palmer, has gotten an honorary degree from Aurora University in Illinois, nine months after so honoring the staffer.
Aurora University is the recipient of $9.8 million of the $24 million in grants funneled to Aurora-based non-profit groups since 1998.
Aurora is a small town of 150,000 people, it was where Dennis Hastert was born, and it's the biggest city in Hastert's district.
But wait!
The bigger issue is that this kind of giving is now streamlined into the new, big government attitude, or the "bilk it till it's dry" scheme of the one-party Republican government running things from Washington these days.
The WP article says:
"Most federal funds for education, road building, health care and other services go to states and communities under formulas based on population, need or other criteria. Communities also compete for grants that are awarded on merit.
Congressional earmarking skirts both processes by letting lawmakers write funding for hometown projects directly into legislation, mainly the annual appropriations bills that keep government agencies running from year to year. In recent years, to overcome budget impasses at the end of each congressional session, GOP leaders have consolidated many of the specialized spending bills into a single "omnibus" bill containing thousands of earmarks that guarantee broad support from legislators.
GOP officials defend earmarking, saying lawmakers are better attuned to their communities than bureaucrats. "They know the needs on the ground," said John D. Scofield, spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/28/AR2005052801183.html
When is pork not pork but rather nuclear bacon?