Did Clinton’s rise cost NY billions?

The new York Daily News is reporting that Sen. Hillary Clinton passed up a chance to chair the Senate Appropriations Committee — one of the most powerful pork-generating posts in Washington.

Instead, according to the Newspaper, she pursued “the more prestigious secretary of state job…”
The report quotes a source in Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s office saying, “It’s absolutely not true.”

But the Daily News insists that the post was offered to Clinton, after aging committee chair Robert Byrd stepped aside.

The increasingly frail Sen. Robert Byrd, 91, recently relinquished the committee’s top perch.

Byrd perfected the practice of pouring taxpayer cash into his home state, West Virginia. Committee bosses have tremendous power to assign pork barrel spending projects.

When Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) had the job this decade, his state received double the national per capita spending average.

Given NY’s budget woes, having a Senator at the top of Appropriations would be huge.

Perhaps Sen. Chuck Schumer will receive the big prize for his work rebuilding the Democrats’ majority status?