Almost $1M in taxpayer money to La Raza
By Chad Groening
The One News Now, March 6, 2009
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=437504
An Iowa congressman says it's outrageous that nearly a million dollars of the proposed Omnibus spending bill would go to an organization that openly advocates illegal immigration.
Congressional officials report the $410-billion Omnibus spending bill currently being debated in Congress is packed with 9,000 earmarks, something candidate Barack Obama said last fall that he opposes. 'We need earmark reform,' Obama said in the September presidential debate held in Oxford, Mississippi. 'And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.'
Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) says one of the earmarks in the Transportation HUD portion of the Omnibus bill allocates $950,000 to the National Council of La Raza for 'capitalization of a revolving loan to be used for nationwide community development activities.'
King says taxpayer dollars should not be going to that organization.
Steve King – 'La Raza stands for 'The Race' — and they say so openly,' the congressman notes. 'They are a pro-Hispanic organization; I will call them a racist organization. They base their philosophy on race. They advocate for those minorities that fit within the category that they define as drives them.'
In addition, says King, La Raza is a pro-amnesty group. 'They are apologists for illegal immigrants — and we are funding them with your tax dollars in this administration through earmarks,' he points out. 'It is outrageous. It's an in-your-face act on the part of this Congress.'
The Omnibus spending bill is still being debated in the Senate, where even some Democrats are questioning its cost. At least one DC budget analyst has observed that 'it will be a little embarrassing' if the president signs a bill with so many earmarks in it.
