Western-Star.com

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. David Hobson has retired, but judging from the mammoth $410 billion omnibus spending bill that passed through Congress last week, his impact lives on.

A quick review of the legislation found at least 32 Hobson earmarks totalling more than $18 million.

Those earmarks range from $400,000 for a Springfield and Clark County program for at-risk youth, to $3.8 million for NextEdge's supercomputing platform.

Hobson requested one earmark with U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who died last fall.

Why is Hobson's, much less Jones' name in legislation being considered this year? Because the House was finishing its 2009 work. This bill will pay for the second half of fiscal year 2009, which began in October.

Most of the bill was written last year when Hobson was still on the House Appropriations Committee.

Make no mistake: He was by no means the only local lawmaker to reap goodies for his district.

Neither House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester, who doesn't request earmarks, nor U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, appear to nab any earmarks in the bill.

And that makes sense — Boehner, for one, has criticized the bill as being too pork-filled.

But U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, and U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, each garnered quite a few goodies for their districts.

Turner's big get was $4.75 million for the cleanup of the former Mound Department of Energy site in Miamisburg. He also secured $1.2 million for a flood protection project at Holes Creek in West Carrollton.

Those are only the big examples. Among other Turner earmarks: $190,000 for a pediatric trauma unit and emergency center at Children's Medical Center in Dayton, as well as $95,000 for education and training for displaced automotive and manufacturing workers in the region.

Schmidt, meanwhile, nabbed a handful of earmarks for construction projects in her district.

All of these don't count the earmarks secured by Ohio's senators, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican George Voinovich. The bill is chock full of earmarks requested by them.

The bill, passed on the heels of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, causes headaches for the House Republican leadership who called for a spending freeze in the bill and wanted the earmarks taken out.

Boehner, the face of House Republicans, has called for the bill to be vetoed. Obama has not given any indication that he intends to do so, despite his exhortations against pork projects.

"If he's really serious about getting rid of wasteful Washington spending, this would be a great example," Boehner said.