East TN Conservative

By John Rodgers, A conservative think tank says state and local governments in Tennessee funded $260 million in wasteful spending in 2007, including a $70 million “biofuels boondoggle” and $6.5 million for eradicating boll weevils. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research’s 2008 “Pork Report” presented what the group calls the wasteful spending projects, the vast majority of which, numbering about $240 million, resulted from state government coffers. “Lawmakers went hog wild,” said Drew Johnson, the group’s executive director. The expenditures the group particularly questioned included $70 million for a program to develop ethanol made from switchgrass. Other spending items the Tennessee Center for Policy Research criticized included:

• $6.5 million for boll weevil eradication. The group says boll weevils currently do not threaten crops in Tennessee.
• $1.4 million for financially failing golf courses.
• $1.2 million for a “barge to nowhere,” or a ferry that crosses the Tennessee River between Houston and Benton Counties. The group claims just 23 paying passengers used the ferry on average per day.