WSJ: Bush Woos Voters Through Local Projects

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U.S. Picks Up the Tab for Street Signs, Airport Expansion in Pivotal Missouri

By GREG HITT
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 13, 2004; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- In early June, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta trumpeted a $48.8 million grant benefiting the St. Louis airport as a "win-win" for local citizens. Undoubtedly, the money will pay for needed improvements, including construction of a new runway and projects to cut down on noise. The largess also was a "win-win" for Mr. Mineta's boss, President Bush. A top aide to the secretary was dispatched to Missouri to personally present the funds "on behalf of the Bush administration," according to a department news release, thereby guaranteeing that Mr. Bush would get credit for the project with Missouri voters.

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With the annual U.S. budget exceeding $2 trillion, it is difficult to track the ebb and flow of federal grants across the country with precision. But since mid-March, when the race for the presidency began to gain momentum, Bush officials have routinely fanned out across the country in a public-relations offensive hard to miss. In many cases, they are doling out cash grants, typically for the sort of projects that draw fire from administration deficit-hawks when they show up as earmarks in congressional spending bills.

In a mid-April swing through the battleground state of New Mexico, which Mr. Bush narrowly lost in 2000, a top Commerce Department aide presented $2.5 million to boost local business development. In mid-May, just a few days after Mr. Bush appeared before the American Conservative Union and vowed to "maintain spending discipline," the White House dispatched the Environmental Protection Agency chief to Chicago to launch a task force to coordinate environmental programs in the Great Lakes basin, a region rich in natural resources -- and votes. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio -- all of which border the lakes -- are considered close races in the presidential election. As it happens, the EPA-led event highlighted a Bush proposal to spend $45 million to clean up contaminated Great Lakes sediments, a $35 million increase from fiscal 2004.

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In the case of the St. Louis airport, the money is being used to make sure the facility keeps pace with increased traffic flow. The announcement was one of many Mr. Mineta has made hailing projects around the country. In May, for example, he appeared before an assembly of Florida businessmen and local officials visiting Washington, D.C., with $4.9 million for improvements to a general-aviation airport in Fort Lauderdale that serves the vote-rich Gold Coast north of Miami.

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With some Missouri projects, the word is spread by Bush allies, who typically make a point of thanking the Bush administration. A chief tub-thumper is Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, a three-term Republican whose office issued a series of announcements in June highlighting administration-approved grants. They included $6,000 to help the village of Mineral Point purchase street signs and a salt spreader and $2,880 to help a rural volunteer fire department obtain a defibrillator and replace the fire station's roof.

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Write to Greg Hitt at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108967312226161772,00.html

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1. it's hard to trace the money because Bush refused to

have a table showing the allocation of the federal budget by state.