Budget bloated by 11,000 pet projects

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- Despite vows to slash pet-project spending, Congress's $555 billion spending bill and $459 billion defense budget contain earmarks for 11,000 such items.

Included in the omnibus spending bill Congress approved this week are a $20 million ferry from Anchorage to a remote peninsula, $100,000 for signs in Los Angeles' fashion district, and $250,000 for a wine and culinary center in Prosser, Wash., The Washington Post said.

President George Bush has threatened to cancel thousands of the projects, the Post said.

"Earmarks are a bipartisan affliction," Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group that tracks pet projects, told the Post. "It would take leadership in both parties -- and a lot more shame -- to ever rein them in."

But there has been some trimming -- this year's spending contains 25 percent fewer pet project earmarks than in 2006, Citizens Against Government Waste said.