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Chronicle Reports 2003 Academic Earmarks Surpass $2B
More than 700 of America's institutions of higher education couldn't claim to be vegetarian based on the record amount of pork they ate from the 2003 federal budget, according to the cover story of this week's Chronicle of Higher Education. The dollar value of college earmarks reached a record $2.013 billion in the current fiscal year's budget, 10 percent more than the previous high mark of $1.837 billion captured in FY 2002. The Chronicle reports the siphoned wealth was spread to 7 percent more schools in FY 2003 through 19 percent more earmarks.
Earmarks for Congress's pet projects have exploded over the past three years — at the same time the federal budget has faced expanding deficits and Congress has called for universities to control spending. Academic pork has doubled since the $1.04 billion posted in FY 2000, while the number of individual earmarks has grown 2.5 times higher from 777 to 1,964.
The research component of the FY 2003 academic earmarks totaled $1.445 billion, the Chronicle found, equaling 8 percent of the total FY 2001 federal obligations for academic research (the latest year for which statistics are available). Forty-six of the current research-related earmarks were for $5 million or more.
Three agencies account for slightly more than half of the total in FY 2003, with the Department of Defense (DoD) most prone to attack. Earmarks from DoD comprise 31 percent of the $2.01 billion total. The share taken from Health and Human Services fell to 10 percent in FY 2003, down from 13 percent in FY 2002 and 14 percent in FY 2001. The Department of Agriculture accounted for 10 percent of the total in FY 2003.
On the state level, Florida secured the greatest chunk of pork with $130.6 million, followed closely by Texas at $118.8 million. The balance of the top 10 for FY 2003 were: California, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Alabama, New York, New Mexico, West Virginia and New Hampshire. On the other end of the spectrum, six states and the District of Columbia received less than $10 million each from the FY 2003 budget.
The Sept. 26 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education also presents a state-by-state list of each earmark.
More information is available at: http://www.chronicle.com