THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 7, 1994 TAG: 9406070323
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D4 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY DENNIS PATTERSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: 940607 LENGTH: RALEIGH
But they've talked little about the millions more going to senators' local pet projects.
{REST} The extra savings, in fact, dropped overnight from $35.9 million to $34.3 million as senators scrambled to dish out more money to needy projects like the Thomas Day House, the Newbold White House or the Haltiwanger Retreat.
If you've never heard of them, you might want to get familiar with them since they would get $250,000 of your tax money under the Senate budget package.
Most of the spending for local projects give no information other than the name of the project and the amount of money it would receive. How those funds would be used, or even where the projects are located, are probably known to the senator that got them stuck in the budget and maybe a handful of others who voted for the bill.
The Thomas Day House and the Newbold White House are scheduled to get $50,000 each under the Senate plan. The Haltiwanger Retreat, which another document lists as being in Montgomery County, is scheduled for $150,000.
``I'm sure glad we aren't seeing any pork-barrel spending in the Senate this year,'' said one state official, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
It was, of course, inevitable.
This year, after some of the leanest years in state history, lawmakers had over half a billion dollars in one-time money that they could divide up.
And it's an election year, which means every incumbent wants some local project they can carry back home when the session is over.
Having that much money available touched off what one House budget leader described as a ``feeding frenzy'' for local projects. And he was describing his own chamber, not the Senate.
The Senate budget plan, in fact, is just round one in the ``get-all-I-can-for-me'' fight. The House is certain to lard up its budget package with the same kind of projects, but most of them will be different.
It will be round three - the negotiating committee between the House and Senate - that decides how much money goes purely for local projects and how much money goes for projects that might be of wider state interest.
Of course, no legislator considers his local projects local. And he won't use the term ``pork barrel'' either - at least for his own projects. That's because legislators - all 170 of them - share some basic beliefs regardless of party or place of origin.
One is that any local project in my district is a ``good, statewide project.'' Two is that anybody else's ``good, statewide project'' is really ``pork barrel.''
And all of them seem to share the belief that the state has done more in everybody else's district than it has in theirs.
Eastern or western lawmakers will tell you quickly that all the state money goes to the Piedmont. Piedmont legislators will tell you that it has all gone to Raleigh or Charlotte, leaving other cities begging.
Big urban legislators say it isn't fair to consider state buildings and museums in their towns as pork-barrel projects, since they serve all the people of the state.
And legislators from counties without a University of North Carolina campus automatically view UNC construction projects as pork barrel.
{KEYWORDS} BUDGET by CNB