Pet Projects or Legitimate Spending?

From a distance, it's easy to criticize someone else's earmark. $50,000 for a dance festival? $25,000 for a town's anniversary? Are these wastes of money? The Globe seems to think so. (What else to make of the headline "Lawmakers feeding pet projects: Bacon comes home to every corner of the Commonwealth"?). For every bridge to nowhere, money flows to deserving projects and disadvantaged communities. Pork is often in the eye of the beholder.

One item calls for $200,000 to be disbursed to the Boston Symphony Orchestra so the renowned group can renovate and repair Tanglewood. There is $25,000 in state taxpayer money to pay for the town of Halifax to have its 275th anniversary next July Fourth. There's enough to cover a merry-go-round in Holyoke, a ballfield in Fitchburg, and new seats at a theater in Medford.

In the $28.2 billion budget approved yesterday by the House and Senate, there are scores of earmarks to fund pet projects in legislators' districts in nearly every corner of Massachusetts.

Other set-asides approved yesterday included $50,000 for the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Beckett. The Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, and the Bing Theatre in Springfield are all beneficiaries. The Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, which charges $16.99 for admission, is getting $300,000 of taxpayer money, which a legislative aide said would go toward securing a Division II college basketball tournament.

Are these earmarks a waste of money? I can't speak for all the earmarks on Globe's list, but much of the spending seems to support tourism, one of the Commonwealth's major industries.

None of the municipalities have money to invest themselves. Tanglewood is essential to the tourist economy of the Berkshires. Along with the Holyoke Children's Museum and the Volleyball Hall of Fame, the merry-go-round in Holyoke are attractions for city that has a hard time attracting people. The City of Springfield certainly doesn't have much money to spend on itself.

There may be a bridge to nowhere in this year's budget, but I have to say, the Globe hasn't convinced me.

--Mb