As promised, Get Moore over the Hump day returns. The Con­gress­man wants to raise $125,000 before March 31, and I’d like to get him way past that. When you give, add 2 cents ($0.02) to your dona­tion to show I sent you.

Kansas would get $2.34 bil­lion for roads under high­way bill:

Kansas is in line for $2.34 bil­lion to spend on fix­ing roads and bridges over the next six years, its share of a mas­sive fed­er­al high­way and tran­sit bill approved Thurs­day by the House.

Con­gress has been work­ing on the long-delayed $284 bil­lion trans­porta­tion pack­age for more than a year and a half, only to see it stall due to dis­agree­ments between Con­gress and the White House on the total cost. Sup­port­ers say the projects fund­ed by the bill will ease con­ges­tion, low­er traf­fic fatal­i­ties and cre­ate jobs.

Kansas’ haul is 21 per­cent, or $412 mil­lion, more that the state received for high­way project in the last six-year bill, accord­ing to esti­mates made by House staff mem­bers. The esti­mate does­n’t include mon­ey includ­ed in the bill for mass-tran­sit projects. …

The leg­is­la­tion now calls for $8.5 mil­lion to replace a bridge over the Union Pacif­ic rail­road tracks on U.S. 169 in Kansas City, Kan., and $5 mil­lion for con­struc­tion of an inter­change at Kansas 7 and 55th Street/Johnson Dri­ve in John­son Coun­ty, accord­ing to Rep. Den­nis Moore, D‑Kan.

Oth­er projects include $4 mil­lion for con­struc­tion of sev­er­al inter­changes on Inter­state 435 and I‑35 in John­son County.

Wyan­dotte Coun­ty to receive $8.9 mill:

Kansas City, Kan. is one step clos­er to replac­ing the bridge over the Union Pacif­ic rail­road tracks on Sev­enth Street.

On Thurs­day, the U.S. House approved H.R. 3, the Trans­porta­tion Equi­ty Act that will give $30 mil­lion in fed­er­al fund­ing request­ed by Rep. Den­nis Moore, D‑Kansas. The bill includes $8.9 mil­lion in fed­er­al dol­lars to replace the U.S. High­way 169 bridge in KCK.

Bring­ing home the bacon.
Crit­ics assail cuts in fed­er­al grants:

“[Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment Block Grant] mon­ey is not about urban and it’s not about rur­al. It’s about peo­ple,” Anna­beth Sur­baugh, chair­woman of the John­son Coun­ty Com­mis­sion, said at a news con­fer­ence held by U.S. Rep. Den­nis Moore, a Kansas Demo­c­rat from the 3rd District.

“It seems like when the feds do a shift in fund­ing we get the shaft,” Sur­baugh said.

The fed­er­al block grant pro­gram, Moore said, is the most reli­able source of fed­er­al fund­ing for pro­grams that address the social, eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems that affect communities.

“In John­son Coun­ty it sup­ports neigh­bor­hood rede­vel­op­ment, assist­ed in con­struc­tion of a hotel, helped indi­vid­u­als with devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties and restored a com­mu­ni­ty struc­ture into a library,” Moore said.

On Wednes­day, Moore, who sits on the House Bud­get Com­mit­tee, pro­posed restor­ing $1.5 bil­lion to the fed­er­al block grant program. …

For more than 30 years, the fed­er­al block grants have pro­vid­ed funds for home­less assis­tance, com­mu­ni­ty revi­tal­iza­tion, job train­ing, child care, domes­tic vio­lence shel­ters, senior cen­ters and emer­gency housing. …

In Feb­ru­ary, the Bush admin­is­tra­tion pro­posed lump­ing the block-grant pro­gram in with 17 oth­er pro­grams and reduc­ing fund­ing for the group by 30 per­cent, from the cur­rent $5.3 bil­lion to $3.7 billion. …

The Nation­al League of Cities main­tains that in 2004, pro­grams fund­ed by block grants cre­at­ed or retained 90,637 jobs. Also, the league claims that for every dol­lar of block-grant fund­ing, $2.79 is lever­aged through pri­vate sources.

The U.S. Con­fer­ence of May­ors and the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Coun­ties also have denounced the cuts. …

Sur­baugh, who got her start in pol­i­tics as a block-grant board mem­ber in Over­land Park, said that with­out the grants, homes dete­ri­o­rate, neigh­bor­hoods crum­ble and the social fab­ric of a com­mu­ni­ty begins to fray.

Despite John­son Coun­ty’s rel­a­tive afflu­ence, offi­cials said that since 2000, the num­ber of res­i­dents who were at or below the pover­ty line had dou­bled to more than 23,000.

Tak­ing care of our communities.

Sol­diers’ fam­i­lies invit­ed to meet with Rep. Moore:

The fam­i­lies of mil­i­tary ser­vice mem­bers are invit­ed to a pub­lic meet­ing with U.S. Rep. Den­nis Moore, R‑Kan., to dis­cuss ways to sup­port troops and main­tain strong, moti­vat­ed armed forces.

“I want to learn all I can about the chal­lenges our troops and their fam­i­lies are fac­ing so we can pro­vide them with the resources they need to accom­plish their mis­sions,” Moore said. …

Moore cur­rent­ly is try­ing to increase the min­i­mum sur­vivor ben­e­fit plan annu­ity for sur­viv­ing spous­es of ser­vice mem­bers who are age 62 and old­er. The bill increas­es the mil­i­tary death gra­tu­ity from $12,000 to $100,000 and would be applied retroac­tive­ly to all ser­vice­men and women on active duty who have died since Sept. 11, 2001.

And sup­port­ing our sol­diers and their fam­i­lies in dif­fi­cult times.

This is what good, mod­er­ate, non-ide­o­log­i­cal Con­gress­men do. Does­n’t he deserve a few dol­lars? Go to his secure web­site, and tack 2 cents onto your con­tri­bu­tion, to remind them I sent you.