Translate blog

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Pork: Rangel has come through with a $3 million defense grant for a project the Pentagon doesn't even want.

Two years after creating a center in his own name at City College, Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel has come through with a $3 million defense grant for the school -- for a project the Pentagon doesn't even want, The Post has learned.
The $3 million cash infusion is going to an existing academic department, rather than to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at CCNY, a $30 million project that will immortalize Rangel's name and house his papers when he retires. Rangel had previously arranged $2 million in taxpayer funds for the center.
The latest piece of congressional pork is to fund research into new composite materials that could be used to protect Army trucks from attack. The grant is tucked into the massive Defense Appropriations Bill moving through Congress.
Word of the funding comes as the House is set to vote today on a Republican-backed resolution to strip Rangel of his Ways and Means Committee chair pending an ethics investigation, after revelations that he didn't disclose income on multiple properties, as well as failure to pay taxes and other issues.
The Pentagon doesn't want the research money, but Rangel got the funding anyway by getting the Appropriations Committee to direct the cash to CCNY. (CONTINUES HERE)

No comments: