Earmarks would pay for highway garage
A bill that includes funding for a Philipstown highway garage passed the U.S. House on Wednesday (March 9) and is expected to be approved in the Senate.
The bill includes $19.5 million in earmarks from Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat whose district includes the Highlands. Among the 10 projects he championed were $1.79 million to construct a garage for the Philipstown Highway Department (the former garage has already been demolished) and $3.5 million for the “ecological restoration” of nearly 40 acres at the former Garrison golf course by the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.
Who else thinks the $3.5 million allocated to the Garrison golf course cleanup stinks? Why are taxpayers paying for a conversion from a golf course where pesticides and who knows what other chemicals were sprayed for years, to the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival?
I wrote Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney about creating a way to stop wrong-way drivers from entering parkways and killing in-nocent people, but not a dime for that, and I never got a response. This seems like rich guys taking care of other rich guys and we, the taxpayers, pay the bill. Don’t even get me started on property taxes.