Apparently what is happening behind closed doors in Washington with with stimulus funds would make Charlie Rich blush.

Floridian congressman John L. Mica  the Republican leader in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, says he has declared war on executive branch bureaucrats earmarking taxpayer dollars “behind closed doors.” 

 “Billions of dollars in stimulus grants have recently been doled out by bureaucrats in the Administration with no transparency or accountability to taxpayers,” Mica said. “The decisions to award $1.5 billion in TIGER grants and $8 billion in high-speed rail stimulus grants were made behind closed doors.  Congress often gets criticized for earmarking, but at least Members of Congress are elected officials that have to stand on their records.  Bureaucrats in the Administration – any Administration – are not accountable to the public.

 “The TIGER grants were intended to create jobs and help economically distressed regions of the country.  However, only 60% of those funds went to economically distressed areas.  More than half of the funding went to states where unemployment is below the national average.  My state of Florida, which has the seventh worst rate of unemployment in the country, received no TIGER grants. 

 “This makes no sense to me,” Mica said.  “The evaluation process for these grants occurred behind closed doors, and I would like this information to be made public.”