Passing Earmarks for Fun & Profit (New York Edition)

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has set up a website where you can find information on earmarks passed in 2005. I just looked at New York earmarks. Here are some of the fine projects your hard earned tax-dollars are funding

$1,488,000 for a "demonstration project to determine the feasibility of bringing naturally chilled water from Lake Ontario to Onondaga and Oswego County"
$99,000 for Puerto Rican traveling theatre
$120,000 to restore the Kirkland Hotel
$74,000 to fund a marketing plan for the the Savannah Elementary School Building
$496,000 for the Virtual Herbarium Project
$100,000 for "The Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts partnership between Queens and Taipei"
$397,000 for jazz education at the Lincoln Center
$30,000 for a summer camp

Some earmarks are sensible projects, but ones that obviously should be funded at the local level. For example, the fine residents of Poughkeepsie, NY should be able to pay for their own roof.