1. Breaking down what those earmarks are paying for...
There are 33 in the Clark County area, totaling $54 million. That doesn’t include the various highway projects throughout the state.
Earmarks are often called pork-barrel spending — it’s federal funding designated by Congress members for pet projects in their districts. Earmarks were banned for a decade due to abuse, and only recently returned in 2021 and many question whether they should have returned at all. Some members of Congress refuse to request them for their districts.
The county is using its earmarks for lots of social services like crisis response services, behavioral health training and peer support, a youth foster program, substance use treatment services in detention facilities,
$2.2 M for the Henderson Airport Terminal Building Remodeling
The cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson got a collective $21 million in earmarks, including for $6.8 million to N. Las Vegas for The Cheyenne Park Safety and Activity project, which will add critical safety elements, activity centers, and a park maintenance hub to provide a variety of health benefits to low and moderate-income area residents.
The City of Las Vegas is getting $5 million for its Vision Zero program to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. N Las Vegas and Henderson are both getting public safety earmarks for $1 million or more.
A $4 million earmark for the Lake Mead/Las Vegas Wash project will construct erosion control structures along the Las Vegas Wash within the boundaries of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area to address erosion of the Wash into Lake Mead.
UNLV is getting $4 million to buy High-Performance Computing hardware and software upgrades at its National Supercomputing Institute. This state-of-the-art technology will enhance computational capacity in support of UNLV’s research community. Another $400,00 for facilities and equipment
College of Southern Nevada is getting College of Southern Nevada $2.3 million for its Nursing Simulation Lab project to upgrade the current lab space on the Henderson Campus.
Nevada State University got $1.7 million for a mental health workforce development project and another almost $1 million for a speech-language pathologist educational training.
Nevada DOT got almost $2 million for the North Las Vegas Carey Avenue project to fix and replace damaged and failing asphalt concrete, install new LED streetlights and pedestrian crossings, and relocate utilities.
$1.3 million to Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada to renovate its St. Vincent Apartments, which include 120 units of affordable housing for low-income renters
$870,000 for a sex trafficking victim program
$850,000 for a townhouse project called Vibranium at York in NLV
2. How does this compare to previous spending?
A: It’s a little less than the previous fiscal year.
There are lots of members of both houses that are protesting earmarks but all four of Nevada’s congress members and its two senators all requested earmarks.
Last year, 114 Congressional earmarks totaling $206 million went to projects in Nevada. Now its 108 projects for $194 million.
In FY 2023, local governments and organizations in Clark County received $68 million in earmarks, compared this year to $54 million.
These are just earmarks, these entities still get other federal funding throughout the year, so there’s lot of money being spread around and its all borrowed against our $34 trillion national debt.
There’s a reason the funding for these projects were banned for a decade and its not because America is flush with cash. It’s because its money we don’t have and it’s prone to abuse by members of Congress who award these earmarks to projects in their districts so their constituents view them favorably and re-elect them.