Jeff Flake: “I am a big fan of Italian food. My district is home to a great Italian restaurant, Anzio's Landing. You can order many…”

“I am a big fan of Italian food. My district is home to a great Italian restaurant, Anzio's Landing. You can order many of your favorite dishes, good Italian bread, and there are many former New Yorkers in my district, and they know it well. But if the owner of this restaurant, whom I know well, if he approached me to get a Federal earmark to modernize his restaurant, I would have to tell him ``fuhgetaboudit.'' Today I am bringing this amendment to learn whether the rest of the House will agree with me on that premise. The bill before us today asks us to spend $150,000 in Federal taxpayer dollars to the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, an Italian grocery market in a neighborhood labeled Bronx's Little Italy. Over a dozen merchants currently reside in the market, including Joe Liberatore's Garden of Plenty, Peter's Meat Market and Mike's Deli, a two-generation family-owned business that sells antipasti, breads, meats, pasta, and imported cheeses. The market is also home to the La Casa Grande Tobacco Company, which offers hand- rolled cigars. In 2004, the market received $300,000 in earmarked Federal dollars for renovations. The market received another $400,000 in Federal transportation appropriation dollars for a new parking facility in 2005. We are back. In 1940, Mayor LaGuardia built an indoor Arthur Avenue Market to take street vendors out of the cold. This is where this originated.…”