A federal grant program established to preserve the country’s historic treasures is on the Obama administration’s budget chopping block, the Associated Press reports.
The $30-million-a-year Save America’s Treasures program, started under President Clinton and overseen by the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation, is zeroed out in President Obama’s spending plan.
Preservation advocates are mobilizing to save the program, which has helped restore the original U.S. flag, the bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, and hundreds of other historic sites and items. But critics say it has become a repository for questionable Congressional earmarks. According to the Office of Management and Budget, much of its spending is done “without using merit-based criteria.”
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