DES MOINES, Iowa-Senator Tom Harkin is very popular with Iowa educators. Since 1998, Iowa schools have received $108.6 million in “Harkin Grants,” as citizens have dubbed them, to fund school repairs, renovations and new construction. In six of the last seven years, Iowa was the only state to receive federal school construction funding.
Harkin, a four-term senator and former chairman of the Senate’s appropriations subcommittee on education, successfully lobbied Congress for funding and annually gets between $7 million and $10 million. In 2002, during his fourth term, Harkin directed $50 million to Iowa.
Harkin tried to take his plan national in 2000, obtaining a $1.2 billion appropriations package but the program ended after one year.
Iowa schools receive more grant money per resident than any other state, claiming $37 per resident while Wyoming, the state with the second highest per-resident grant funding claims $11 per resident.
The Harkin Grants have their critics, chief among them the Citizens Against Government Waste. The group publishes the annual “Pig Book,” in reference to pork-barrel politics, and listed the Harkin Grants four times in the last five years.
There are no apologies from Harkin, however, who answers critics by saying it is his job to fight for Iowans and their schools.