YIKES - federal funding chop for planting trees on Milwaukee Public Schools grounds.

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation held a news conference at O'Donnell Park to attack a provision in the Interior Department appropriations bill that earmarks $350,000 for urban tree planting. Foundation President Tim Phillips and other speakers, including County Executive Scott Walker and several Republican political candidates, said they weren't opposed to trees but thought $350,000 was too much for 3,000 trees.

Phillips said such earmarks are part of a pattern that leads to "pork-barrel spending." The organization believes members of Congress should submit earmark requests with their names attached early in the budget process instead of adding them anonymously at the last minute, Phillips said.

In fact, the money did not go for trees alone but was part of a $700,000 city program of replacing asphalt with grass and trees at schools, after a study showed it would help cut Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District overflows, said Eileen Force, Mayor Tom Barrett's spokeswoman.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), who claimed credit for the provision, has never slipped earmarks anonymously into an appropriations bill just before passage, said his spokeswoman, Lynn Becker.