Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: Congressman Tries to Add Garage to Empty Building

Topline: In 2008, the U.S. Department of Transportation stopped Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) from investing $5.6 million to build a parking garage in a vacant office building named after himself, but not until millions had already been poured into the building.

Kanjorski says it’s free money

Kanjorski’s justification? Federal grants are “free money,” as he repeatedly told CBS News.

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Coburn included projects that he couldn’t stop in his oversight reports.

Coburn’s Wastebook 2008 included 65 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $1.3 billion, including Kanjorski’s blocked earmark — which would be worth $8.3 million today.

Key facts: Members of Congress often earmark money for projects with a tangential personal connection, such as universities they attended or libraries that house their Congressional papers.

Kanjorski was less discreet. He used $3 million of federal funds in 1993 to help open the Kanjorski Center in his hometown of Nanticoke, Penn. — population, 10,600. That money would be worth $6.6 million today.

The office building struggled to keep its first few tenants. An insurance company left in 2005 because there wasn’t enough space, allegedly because Kanjorski wouldn’t let them expand without buying property owned by his relatives.

The city spent $15,000 per month to maintain the building while it was vacant.

The parking garage

Kanjorski had a solution. He placed an earmark in the 2005 federal budget to build a parking garage in the empty building, hoping to convince a local community college to lease the space.

That violated federal law because the garage was not for mass transit, but Kanjorski didn’t mind. He told CBS News that “I don’t think the rule should have any attention paid to it. Because in Congress we have our own rules.”

The earmark was signed into law and went unchallenged until 2008, when Department of Transportation officials put their foot down and blocked the project before the funds were spent.

Kanjorski was left confused by the decision. When reminded that the garage would have been a burden for taxpayers, he argued that, “It is the taxpayers of the United States’ money, but it doesn’t cause any difficulty to the community to take the money.”

Summary: OpenTheBooks’ auditors often find politicians who treat taxpayer money like an unlimited resource, but Kanjorski is perhaps the first one to readily admit to that philosophy.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.