Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. (Bloomberg News)

WASHINGTON – It looks like Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is going to get his wish – $2 million in taxpayer funding for a library commemorating his 37 years in the House of Representatives.

The Charles B. Rangel Center for Public service will serve as a repository for his "papers," and the congressman will have his own office in the Harlem complex. The facility has already attracted some $25 million in funding from private sources.

Rangel suggests the project will someday be "as important as the Carter and Clinton libraries."

That's just one of hundreds of so-called "earmarks," pet projects of members of the House and Senate, costing taxpayers billions set for approval in the 2008 budget.

The pork-barrel spending planned for next year includes $3.5 million for La Raza, sometimes described as a radical hate group which advocates a takeover of parts of the U.S. Southwest by Mexico.

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A plan by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, both Democrats from New York, to spend $1 million on a Woodstock museum was shot down this week to the astonishment of its backers.

But plenty of other pork is still on the plate:

• $1 million for the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, requested by Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both Democrats from Arkansas;

• $200,000 for the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, requested by Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada;

• $3.74 million for research into the Formosan Subterranean Termite, requested by Reps. Rodney Alexander and Richard Baker of Louisiana;

• AFL-CIO Working for America Institute, requested by Sen. Tom Harkin;

• $750,000 for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, requested by Clinton, Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid;

• $3.76 million for the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, requested by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison;

• $1 million for the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library, requested by Sen. Thad Cochrane, Republican of Mississippi;

• $150,000 for rodent control on the Aleutian Islands, requested by Ted Stevens of Alaska;

• $250,000 to build the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center in Washington, requested by Rep. Doc Hastings.

• $470,000 to study the Asian Long-Horned Beetle, requested by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois;

• $244,077 for bee research in Weslaco, Texas, requested by Rep. Chet Edwards;

• $213,386 to study the Oliver Fruit Fly in Montpelier, France, requested by Mike Thompson of California;

• $1.7 million for the Centers for Disease Control to fund a Hollywood liaison to advise doctor dramas;

• $5.1 million for "audio and visual integration" in the CDC's new Thomas R. Harkin communications and visitor center – and, yes, that is Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is sick of this kind of spending. He was responsible for leading the successful fight against the Woodstock Museum.

Not only did he question the propriety and constitutionality of spending taxpayer money on building a commemorative facility to the 1969 rock music festival, but he pointed out the project had all the "earmarks" of a political quid pro quo.

The museum is being funded by billionaire Alan Gerry and his foundation, which has investment income of $24 million a year. Gerry donated $229,000 to political campaigns, with much of it going to support Clinton and Schumer, the senators carrying water for his pet project.

Coburn has offered an amendment calling on the Senate to place a temporary moratorium on transportation pork until all structurally deficient bridges are repaired. His measure was defeated 82-14.

Coburn is the author of the WND Book, "Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders."

A report by the Heritage Foundation last week found some 11,351 pork projects in the House and Senate appropriations bills.

"If this legislation passes, thousands of government grants will be distributed based on political, lobbying and/or campaign donations, rather than on merit," says Brian M. Riedl, author of the report.

He also points out it was the incoming Democratic leadership, particularly in the House, that promised to clean up pork-barrel spending.

Earlier this year, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., announced his intention to keep secret the pork projects in spending bills until after the bills had passed the House, Riedl says. Public pressure forced him to back down.

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