A group of mayors came palms-up Thursday to a meeting with President-elect Barack Obama before his much-hyped speech on how to stimulate the economy.
The mayors asked for more than $73 billion for programs they say will create an estimated 847,000 jobs in the next two years. The programs represent requests from 427 cities.
But some of those projects may earn the nefarious "pork" label -- spending programs that appear to be pet projects that offer little benefit for the cost.
Obama is asking Congress to pass an economic stimulus plan with a price tag that starts at $775 billion. The president-elect pledged the package will not contain earmarks.
"This emergency legislation must not be the vehicle for those aspirations. This must be a time for leaders in both parties to put the urgent needs of our nation above their own narrow interests," Obama said in a speech at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
The cities requesting cash, including major metropolises like Los Angeles and Detroit as well as hamlets like Lava Hot Spring, Idaho, and Flower Mound, Texas, provided a list of improvements they would like to undertake with federal funding.
The mayor of Zanesville, Ohio, for instance, is seeking $17 million for 12 projects, mostly for waste water filtration and sewer upgrades. The city claims the money will create 7,735 jobs.
Providence, R.I., Mayor David Cicilline has requested $584 million for 82 projects that include development of the polar bear exhibit at Roger Williams Park Zoo and improvements to a soccer field.
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz wants $3.2 billion for 435 projects that he says will create more than 52,000 jobs. Among those projects: construction of a water slide, creation of new BMX and dirt bike trails at Virginia Key Park, and a new Miami Rowing Club Building and Virginia Key Beach Museum.
Diaz told FOX News that a water slide and other projects do not fit the definition of pork.
"The difference is that at the local level, projects are as transparent as you can find. Earmarks are typically projects that are hidden in either federal or state budgets that people don't find out about till after the fact. Every project that cities get involved in go through a referendum process, go in front of the city council or they are part of our budget or part of our capital plans individually for cities, so they are constantly being vetted," he said.
Diaz said the number of projects he requested is only a small fraction of the projects his city needs.
"It's unfair to single out or to focus too much attention on one of those projects when you have another 14, 15,000 ready to go," he said.
Republicans hesitate to object too strongly to the president-elect's stimulus package, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that Republicans "are clearly not interested in seeing money spent on mob museums and water slides. The question is, how will the money be spent?"
Senate Budget Committee Ranking Republican Judd Gregg said lawmakers "all love beautifying Main Street," but he warned, "That's not the type of infrastructure that will create more jobs and make us more competitive."
Obama said Thursday that the overwhelming majority of the 3 million jobs he wants to create are in the private sector. Many of those jobs will be in the energy industry, and "can't be outsourced," he said, including the retrofitting of 75 percent of federal buildings to make them more energy efficient.
"It's not just another public works program. It's a plan that recognizes the paradox and promise of this moment," the president-elect said of his proposal.