These days, as Congress is looking to trim unnecessary federal spending, you would think that a project like the James Webb Space Telescope -- $1.5 billion over budget and plagued by problems and delays -- would need to go. A House Appropriations subcommittee thinks so and defunded it, but this move is encountering opposition from Rep. Steny Hoyer. Even though Rep. Hoyer has said he thinks we need to cut spending, it appears he doesn’t think any spending needs to be cut if it benefits his own district.
As the Baltimore Sun reported, when the House subcommittee cut funding for this problem-plagued telescope, Hoyer fired off a letter pleading that the full Appropriations Committee restore its funding. His pleas to restore the 5th District’s pork stand in contrast to his earlier budget rhetoric. In May, Rep. Hoyer made these remarks:
Our fiscal challenge is so large that both parties are going to have to give up some of the ideology and take some hard steps that they don’t especially like. The biggest distinction in Congress right now is between those who are willing to do that, and those who are so stuck in their old ways of thinking that they won’t budge.
At the time he also said, “I believe that we have to spend less money…”
Marc Kilmer is a Maryland Public Policy Institute senior fellow specializing in health care issues. Besides his work with MPPI, he also works with the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a free market think tank in Ohio. Kilmer has a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science from Hillsdale College in Michigan and lives in Salisbury, Maryland, with his wife and daughter.
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