The State of Texas is making open government a priority:

Texas this month joined a handful of states and the federal government in posting detailed financial information on the Internet. Anyone with strong eyeballs and an investigative spirit now can search for pork or find out if their neighbor’s business sells widgets to the state.

The “Where The Money Goes” feature on the comptroller’s Web site — at www.window.state.tx.us — is the result of legislation by a group of thirtysomething, tech-savvy lawmakers.

Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, a technology consultant who founded the first company to register voters online, wrote the bill that required the online database.

He modeled it after federal legislation passed last year. Texas joins Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Hawaii and Missouri in setting up searchable spending sites.

State Rep. Jill Chambers proposed similar legislation that would have applied to the executive branch of state government, it was vetoed by Sonny Perdue.

And…despite the hard time we give Glenn Richardson, he is promising to implement zero-based budgeting next year and he should be given credit for that.

If you ever get a chance to read the state budget in each section you will see one word…”continuation.” The legislature renews a budget each year with really knowing what they are spending it on. Even the Speaker acknowledges that “[he doesn’t] know what we’re going to find.”

Another thing the legislature should do is require the legislator asking for a Local Assistance Grant to put his name next to the earmark in order to provide some sort of transparency and open government to the citizens of this state.

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Georgia’s support of golf doesn’t stop at the Golf Hall of Fame:

Golfers pay about $40 to play at Hard Labor Creek, a state park about an hour east of Atlanta. Taxpayers chip in another $5 per round at the money-losing golf course.

That’s a bargain compared with a round of golf at Brazzell’s Creek in Reidsville. Taxpayers subsidize players at the South Georgia course to the tune of $29 per round. And the little-used golf course is undergoing a $3 million upgrade, trading nine holes for 18, paid for by, yup, taxpayers.

Georgia’s seven state-run golf courses lost $1 million in fiscal year 2006. Since 2002, losses have averaged $941,000 a year.

“It’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?” said former state Sen. Robert Lamutt, an east Cobb Republican who railed against golf course spending while serving in the General Assembly. “Is that government’s job? To take [tax money] from me, by force of law, to give to somebody down in South Georgia so they can have a golf course?”

Of course supporters of this type of pork spending say it’s “economic development” and one Republican State Senator defends it:

Supporters say the links serve as economic development tools that attract duffers to rural, economically stunted areas of the state. They note that state parks and historic sites are also subsidized by taxpayers. And, they add, all Georgians deserve the same quality-of-life amenities available to their more urbanized brethren.

“A decision has been made that recreation is a thing of merit for tax dollars,” said Sen. Jack Hill, the Reidsville Republican whose district includes Brazzell’s Creek. Or “we can let the marketplace provide all recreation and we can have private state parks. You can’t separate state parks and golf courses, in my mind.”

Surprise…Sen. Jack Hill is Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Hill was originally elected as a Democrat in 1990. He switched parties a few years ago when it was no longer politically convenient to be a Democrat.

Why are taxpayers subsiding golf courses? The private sector can likely run it more efficiently and for a profit and if the course goes under, there wasn’t a market for it. That doesn’t give the state an excuse to step in. It means that the golf lovers of that area will have to find somewhere else to play.

And…Alan Essig, a left-leaning economist with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute (of course they are labeled as “nonpartisan” article, nothing could be further from the truth), who seems to believe that Georgians aren’t already overtaxed and that our government doesn’t spend enough money as it is, believes that there is “nothing fundamentally wrong with having publicly funded parks or golf courses.” Alan Essig has never seen a spending program that he didn’t believe was “fundamentally wrong.” Essig represents everything that is wrong with the current view of government.

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Why don’t you head down to the Big Pig Jig in Dooly County during the first weekend in October and demand a free plate of BBQ since your tax dollars went to “improve” the site that hosts the event.

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I got an e-mail from the Sunlight Foundation today. They have, in collusion with Taxpayers for Common Sense, launched a new site called EarmarkWatch.org:

You don’t have to be an expert on earmarks — EarmarkWatch.org gives you the power to easily research, evaluate and comment on the pet projects favored and funded by members of Congress.

Right now, you can investigate earmarks from the House Defense Appropriations Bill and the House and Senate versions of the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bills. EarmarkWatch.org will guide you through a series of steps that an investigative reporter would follow, associating different kinds of political information with each earmark, and will also show you how to use online resources to find out whether recipients of earmarks hired lobbyists, made campaign contributions to members of Congress, or won federal contracts and grants. You can also add information to earmarks others have researched, or comment on what others have found.

The site is neat. Make sure you check it out.

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Chambliss and Isakson voted to strip appropriations for the International Peace Garden in North Dakota, a baseball park in Montana and a wetlands center in Louisana. The amendment, which failed 32-63, was sponsored by Senator Tom Coburn.

H/T: Club for Growth

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US Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is sponsoring several anti-pork amendments today. The Club for Growth has the list:

1) Earmark moratorium until all deficient bridges are repaired (#2810)
2) Prohibits funding of bike paths (#2811)
3) International Peace Garden in Dunseith, North Dakota (#2812)
4) America’s Wetland Center in Lake Charles, Louisiana (#2813)
5) New baseball stadium in Billings, Montana (#2814)
6) Lakeview Museum in Peoria, Illinois (#2815)

We’ll keeping a close eye on Chambliss and Isakson to see if they support the taxpayers or special interests.

[UPDATE] The earmark moratorium failed 14-82. Chambliss and Iskason voted in favor of the moratorium (and in favor of the taxpayers).

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The Club for Growth has released the RePORK card for 2007, up to this point, which rates Congressman on the fifty anti-pork amendments that have been offered.

Here are some examples of targeted pork projects:

• $1 million to the Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure in Johnstown, Pennsylvania
• $2 million to establish the “Rangel Center for Public Service” at City College of New York
• $34 million for the Alaska Native Education Equity program
• $50,000 for the National Mule and Packers Museum in California
• $100,000 for renovation of the Fire Fighters Hall in Columbus, Ohio
• $100,000 for the renovation of St. Joseph College’s theatre in Indiana

Georgia is doing well, or at least as well as one can expect. We have one of the more pro-taxpayer delegations in the country. Westmoreland (50/50), Deal (50/50) and Broun (12/12) are batting 1.000. Price (49/50) and Linder (48/50) aren’t far off. Much praise is deserved for these guys on this front.

Gingrey (37/50) and Kingston (26/50) are lagging, though Kingston has voted for more of anti-pork amendments than anyone else on the House Appropriations Committee.

Barrow (10/50) and Marshall (8/41), like Kingston, leave much to be desired.

Bishop (1/48), Johnson (1/48), Lewis (1/50), Scott (1/50) are very much pro-pork and ordinarily don’t mind spending taxpayer dollars on vote buying projects for themselves or their colleagues. However, they joined the rest of the Georgia delegation in voting to strike a $129,000 earmark for the “perfect Christmas tree.”

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Porkbusters is giving a rundown of earmark requests in the upcoming defense appropriations package. In total there are 1,776 earmarks.

There are 76 earmark requests for Georgia…

• Jack Kingston - 26 earmarks
• Sanford Bishop - 18 earmarks
• Jim Marshall - 10 earmarks
• Phil Gingrey - 7 earmarks
• Hank Johnson - 4 earmarks
• David Scott - 4 earmarks
• John Lewis - 3 earmarks
• John Barrow - 2 earmarks
• Lynn Westmoreland - 2 earmarks
• John Linder - 0 earmarks
• Tom Price - 0 earmarks
• Nathan Deal - 0 earmarks
• Paul Broun - N/A

It should be noted that Jack Kingston (R-1st) and Sanford Bishop (D-2nd) sit on the House Appropriations Committee and have military bases within their respective districts.

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It looks like there won’t be much sunlight in how the State House works in its pork barrel projects:

Meeting with reporters recently, Majority Leader Jerry Keen said House GOP budget writers may decide to hold off considering proposed capital projects until the spending plan reaches a conference committee with the Senate, the last step before lawmakers adopt the budget.
[…]
The idea of waiting until the conference committee meets to take up capital projects is modeled after an approach the legislature already has begun taking with so-called “special projects,” the local grants lawmakers insert into the budget each year that critics deride as “pork” projects.

This year, the conference committee added $6.5 million in local grants to the budget during their final negotiations.

Keen, R-St. Simons Island, said the process worked well because those projects became associated with the full General Assembly rather than with the parochial interests of an individual legislator or legislative chamber.

“Projects that are good for Georgia should be good for Georgia,” he said. “They shouldn’t be labeled as ‘this person’s project’ or ‘this body’s project.’”

Rep. John Heard, R-Lawrenceville, chairman of the House budget subcommittee on special projects, said he likes the idea of expanding the concept, as long as capital projects receive the same vetting that his panel gave to the local grants individual House members requested.

As Chris Farris notes, this is the exact same way Democrats in the United States Congress have been adding their pork projects, a move that has been severely criticized by bloggers and fiscally conservative political commentators.

It didn’t take long for Georgia Republicans to let the power get to their heads.

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Sonny Perdue should have been impeached over his proposed tax increase in 2003, but this is absolutely inexcusable:

Turns out the state could afford that $142 million property tax cut that Gov. Sonny Perdue vetoed after all.

State tax collections jumped $1.2 billion during the recently completed fiscal year, leaving officials with a $600 million budget surplus.

Most of the money will go into state reserves, which now stand at a record $1.2 billion.

However, collections were up 7 percent in June, and rose 7.5 percent for the fiscal year, which ended June 30. Income tax collections, which were down the month before Perdue vetoed the tax cut, rose 9.4 percent last year.

The government lines it’s pockets with money that should be returned to the taxpayers. Thanks, Sonny.

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