Taking Taxpayers for a Bronco Ride

Today’s ‘At the Trough’ features an earmark that was forcibly roped into the 2009 omnibus appropriations act. Federal legislators have recently designated $150, 000 for a rodeo museum in Fort Pierre, South Dakota (population: 1, 991). Some in the area sincerely hope that rodeo enthusiasts from far and wide will book at the local Holiday Inn Express for a gander at the achievements of South Dakota native son and cowboy Casey Tibbs. The Casey Tibbs Rodeo Center, as it is called, will also present the rodeo-related achievements of other South Dakotans and pay homage to such popular rodeo events as barrel racing, pole bending, steer wrestling, goat tying and bull riding. With this federal funding, it is hoped that the center will open by August of this year. But what’s peculiar about this earmark is that it goes to a museum that has already been quite successful at raising its own money. A private $22,500 donation was made to the Casey Tibbs Foundation to buy the land on which the museum now stands. $100,000 was offered by an anonymous donor to kick off the fundraising campaign. Annual fundraising dinners have raised enough money to complete the outer shell of the rodeo center, and Mattie Goff-Newcombe, a “World Champion trick rider and lady bronc rider”, has provided enough to complete the inside. There is obviously a widespread desire in the community to have this center built, since it would promote a valued pastime and create a few jobs.  But the Casey Tibbs Foundation is an organization with tax-deductible status and a long history of successful fundraising! Why, after all this toil, would it succumb to public funding now? The widespread desire for the center to be built had been complimented with an excited donor response. There is no reason that this museum could not have been built and run on private initiative alone. One poster on a local rodeo chatboard put it plainly: “rodeo museum? Great! Earmarked for the American Taxpayer to fund? Wrong!” So, as it stands, taxpayers from coast to coast will be footing the bill for the citizens of Fort Pierre. Fans of Eskimo poetry, rock collecting and Pokémon cards will have to wait ‘til next year for their shrines, but rodeo enthusiasts in South Dakota will have their day in the sun this August, thanks to public money. I’m sure that those who haven’t yet taken up rodeo as a hobby will join me in saying that this earmark is bull.