Huffington Magazine Issue 61 | Page 73

KENTUCKY’S KING ington Post review of three years’ worth of public earmarks, from 2008 through 2010, shows that McConnell orchestrated the delivery of nearly half a billion dollars in federal funds, with a pronounced emphasis on projects in his home state. If earmarks coordinated with presidential budgets are included, the figure swells to $1.5 billion. Earmarks are no longer part of McConnell’s political toolkit, but the senator is still campaigning on his pork-barrel legacy. Just days after Alison Lundergan Grimes formally jumped into the Senate race, he was already reminding voters of the federal benefits he has steered to Kentucky, and ridiculing Grimes’ ability to bring home the bacon as a backbencher. “Kentucky would lose dramatically by trading in a leader of one of the two parties in the Senate for a rookie,” McConnell told reporters on July 3. “Kentucky is in an extraordinary position of influence as a result of their confidence in me over the years. ... Do we really want to lose the influence?” The biggest chunk of McConnell’s earmarks were devoted to defense spending, but they financed an astonishing variety of projects, including at least $21.9 million on HUFFINGTON 08.11.13 “KENTUCKY IS IN AN EXTRAORDINARY POSITION OF INFLUENCE AS A RESULT OF THEIR CONFIDENCE IN ME OVER THE YEARS. ... DO WE REALLY WANT TO LOSE THE INFLUENCE?” civilian health efforts and $24 million for a “medical/dental clinic” at the Army’s Fort Campbell. McConnell directed money to everything from mobile health screenings to lab upgrades for stem cell research into heart failure. One earmark funneled money to a University of Louisville scientist for groundbreaking research into aging, with treatment implications for Alzheimer’s and even space travel. Indeed, the state’s public universities have been big benefactors of the senator’s earmarks. In the decade before the earmark ban, McConnell bestowed approximately $140 million on the University of Kentucky, according to Bill Schweri, the university’s director of federal relations. Much of the McConnell largess went to new building construction and steady research support. Schweri met regularly with McConnell’s staff, becoming intimately