The Pork Report
November 5, 2007 -  | |
| | The FY 2008 Democrat appropriations bills include $24.7 billion to fund more than 12,000 earmarks. Republicans recently united to eliminate one such earmark for a museum in New York dedicated to the 1969 Woodstock Festival. The Pork Report highlights other examples of questionable spending in this year’s appropriations bills. | 
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Woodstock Edition |
$100,000 for the Los Angeles Fashion District? > The House Transportation and HUD appropriations bill includes a $100,000 earmark for the Los Angeles Fashion District for “signage and streetscape improvements.”1
According to its website, the Los Angeles Fashion District “spans 90 blocks and is the hub of the apparel industry on the West Coast. Retailers, wholesale buyers, designers, stylists, students, shoppers and residents all converge here.” 2
According to the district’s quarterly newsletter, The Fashion Files, the district recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary as a business improvement district, which is “a non-profit organization, dedicated to making the community a clean, safe and friendly place to work, shop, do business and live through maintenance, security and marketing programs.” 3
A recent report conducted by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation and Economic Research Associates revealed that the fashion district “generates $5.76 billion in business revenue annually” and that “retail sales exceeded $495 million in 2005.” 4
Should federal taxpayer dollars subsidize a business district that generates nearly a half a billion dollars in sales annually?
1Office of Management and Budget, http://earmarks.omb.gov/by-tracking/summary.html.
2LA Fashion District Website, http://www.fashiondistrict.org/.
3Spring/Summer 2007 Fashion Files, http://lafashion.veplan.net/page.aspx?id=131
4LA Fashion District Press Release, June 22, 2007, http://lafashion.veplan.net/custom/11/1107/misc/EconDevReport_062207.pdf.
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