Sherry Chandler » Hal Rogers
Hal Rogers
Republican Congressman Hal Rogers is so beloved in Kentucky that we took Daniel Boone’s name off a highway into the mountains and named it for Hal Rogers instead.
Some of the reason may be found in this morning’s NYTimes:
WASHINGTON, May 13 — The Department of Homeland Security has invested tens of millions of dollars and countless hours of labor over the last four years on a seemingly simple task: creating a tamperproof identification card for airport, rail and maritime workers.
Yet nearly two years past a planned deadline, production of the card, known as the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, has yet to begin.
Instead, the road to delivering this critical antiterrorism tool has taken detours to locations, companies and groups often linked to Representative Harold Rogers, a Kentucky Republican who is the powerful chairman of the House subcommittee that controls the Homeland Security budget.
It is a route that has benefited Mr. Rogers, creating jobs in his home district and profits for companies that are donors to his political causes. The congressman has also taken 11 trips — including six to Hawaii — on the tab of an organization that until this week was to profit from a no-bid contract Mr. Rogers helped arrange. Work has even been set aside for a tiny start-up company in Kentucky that employs John Rogers, the congressman’s son.
….
Mr. Rogers, 68, whom The Lexington Herald-Leader last year called the Prince of Pork, has never been shy about using clout gained over 13 House terms to steer federal dollars to his sparsely populated, poor corner of southeastern Kentucky.
“We see Hal pretty often,” Mayor Amos Miller of Corbin, a Republican, said in an interview. “And he always brings good news.”
Corbin was settled as a railroad depot for nearby coal mines, and its first claim to fame came with Col. Harland Sanders, who began serving up dishes of fried chicken there in the 1930’s. Mr. Rogers has made it a mission to create a new growth industry: domestic security.
“Our people will be on the front lines in the war against terrorism worldwide,” Mr. Rogers told Corbin leaders in 2003, as he announced plans to build a plant for NucSafe, a radiation detection equipment company.
One man’s pork is another man’s brilliant politics. When you live in an economically depressed area, you tend to vote for the person who can bring jobs and money into your area. It’s why we continue to have pork. It’s called job security.
It’s also why we need a free press and a strong system of check and balances.
[Update: Bluegrass Reports makes the political connections that I'm not knowledgeable enough to make. ]
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1 Comment
1. Charlie replies at 14th May 2006, 4:35 pm :
Your last paragraph puts it all in perspective. There are plenty of Kentuckians who debased Carl D. Perkins until a fly wouldn’t light on him. But his legacy will live for generations in Eastern KY. And those who talked so badly about him were usually the first ones to take advantage of the help he brought to Eastern KY. I don’t know much about Hal Rogers, but when I do hear something about him it is usually pretty good. (it is certainly out of character for any Republican to do something to help ordinary people) One must be careful of what he asks for. I distinctly remember hearing Jim Bunning campaign on the promise of not being a pork barrel senator. What he really meant was that he was going to do absolutely nothing to help Kentuckians, if elected. He has kept his promise.–charlie
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