GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — As West Michiganders and Americans across the country file their taxes, Congress will now decide how to spend that money.
As part of the negotiations, members of Congress have now submitted their annual requests for community project funding, more commonly known as earmarks.
"Community project funding is an annual allocation in the budget that allows individual members of Congress to help fund critical need around the district," Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) said.
Requests from members of Congress are first made to congressional offices by members of the public.
Scholten's 15 requests, the maximum any member can submit, total over $30 million for local projects in Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, including affordable housing, public transportation and community infrastructure.
"One of the things that it was really important for me to do was to elevate projects that were not so hyper niche, that they would not impact a large number of constituents throughout West Michigan," Scholten said. "So, they're projects that really have broad appeal and across party lines."
In the past, earmarks have stoked sizeable controversy over potential corruption and misuse of public dollars — so much so that the process was banned in Congress from 2011 to 2021 and instead given to federal departments to decide which projects to fund.
"I think the way that earmarks had been handled in the past was a huge concern for the public — and rightly so," Scholten said. "You know, there was so much misuse and abuse of public funds for private services and private needs."
It's why Scholten said it was key to her first time around that the process be transparent to the public.
"It's so critical that we hold our government officials accountable for financially responsible spending," Scholten said. "And I actually think, when done correctly, these community project funds are just a great way to do that."
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