Politicians Criticized for "Monuments to Me"

Rep. Maxine Waters has been at the center of a conflict with David Obey (Wisconsin), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee because of her efforts to obtain a $1 million earmark to pay for the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center. The center is intended to be a facility introduced into the Los Angeles public school system. Critics are railing against the building of the center because it is just another reminder of the fact that Congress is still allowing earmarks for taxpayer funds to be used by Senators for pork-barrel pet projects that are named after them. The practice of naming academic facilities, monuments, water projects, libraries, airports, and roads after politicians has become colloquially known as "Monuments to Me."

One of the most flagrant examples of a politician being out of control in building "monuments to him" is the case of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New York. Rangel was the subject of a scathing media frenzy after his $2 million earmark was approved for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service, the Charles Rangel Library at the City College of New York, and the Rangel Conference Center. Recently the practice emerged again when news outlets began questioning the use of $150 million in budgetary earmarks throughout the last ten years to fund construction and maintenance of the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport, located in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The airport is nearly deserted most of the time.

The problem of "Monuments to Me" is a wide-ranging one that covers members of all political parties. The Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad program, if approved, will cost taxpayers $80 million annually. If Don Young’s Way is built (Rep. Don Young), it will cost taxpayers $231 million. House Majority Whip James Clyburn has a pedestrian overpass and a golf center that carry his name. Sen. Pat Roberts has his own building, Pat Roberts Hall at Kansas State University. Former Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens secured earmarks for improvements to the Ted Stevens Airport in Anchorage, Alaska, and former Senator Trent Lott did the same thing for the airport named for him near Pascagoula.

The lifetime achievement award for eponymous monuments may belong to former Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, who has more than 30 projects named for him in his home state. In addition to several major roads and highways, there are the Robert C. Byrd Academic and Technology Center, the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam, the Robert C. Byrd High School, the Robert C. Byrd Visitor Center at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, and the Robert C. Byrd Clinic at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine. Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), the largest nonpartisan organization dedicated to eliminating government waste, has devoted an entire section of its website to Byrd, and he didn’t even need to request an earmark to secure that particular monumental achievement.