Anti-Spending GOP Rep Wants Federal Funds To Make George W. Bush’s Childhood Home A National Park [View all]

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Anti-Spending GOP Rep Wants Federal Funds To Make George W. Bush’s Childhood Home A National Park

By Josh Israel on Feb 21, 2013 at 11:59 am

Rep. K. Michael “Mike” Conaway (R-TX) has been among the most vocal critics of federal spending, claiming that massive cuts would actually create more jobs. But as he publicly pushed to stop “wasteful government spending,” he privately lobbied the National Park Service to turn the childhood home of former President George W. Bush into a National Park.

A ThinkProgress review of legislative correspondence with the U.S. Department of the Interior revealed that on September 11, 2012, Conaway wrote Secretary Ken Salazar to request a “reconnaissance Survey” of a potential new national park location. According to the log, Conaway’s letter asked that the National Park Service “look at the possibility of adding the George W. Bush childhood home as a unit of the Park Service.”

Conaway’s official biography claims he has “the credibility to be a vocal proponent in reducing the national debt,” and thinks Congress must make “tough choices” to balance the budget. Last week, Conway criticized the cost-neutral investments proposed in President Obama’s State of the Union, saying: “Halting the rise in borrowing isn’t enough; we must learn to live within our means and break our dependence on deficit spending.”

But Conaway, who was chief financial officer in the 1980?s for Bush Exploration, George W. Bush’s failed oil business, apparently makes an exception to his opposition to unnecessary government spending in the case of his longtime friend and former boss.

more:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/02/21/1617901/anti-spending-republican-sought-government-funds-to-protect-george-w-bushs-childhood-home/