Congress Gorges on Pork
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Congress Gorges on Pork Now members can earmark billions, with a handy computerized form. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES WITH THE EXCEPTION of air and perhaps water, no substance known to man is less in...
...Projects known as "earmarks," which account for most pork-barrel spending, take both the competition and the oversight out of the process and simply send the money to a congressman's favored institution...
...Matthew Lesko, the dork in the purple suit who screams about "free government money" in his TV commercials, isn't the only one who has recognized this giveaway...
...Congress is earmarking these things at a pace that is faster than the projects can be completed," says Ron Utt, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation...
...Daniels audaciously suggested that what he calls "pieces of spending specifically designated by a member of Congress" be judged on (a) their necessity, and (b) their effectiveness...
...The e-mail asks each Senate office to submit a list of pet projects, along with staff and local contacts...
...Apparently they were getting so many requests that they couldn't keep track," says David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste...
...Every dollar you spend frivolously comes out of every taxpayer's pocket," he says...
...It's an indication of just how out of control this is...
...They can't even keep up with their own greed...
...Early last year, President Bush's budget director, Mitch Daniels, launched a campaign to identify and eliminate, or at least minimize, earmarks...
...BY STEPHEN F. HAYES WITH THE EXCEPTION of air and perhaps water, no substance known to man is less in need of marketing than food...
...John McCain, with typical outspokenness, calls it "war-profiteering...
...In the face of immediate and grave threats to Americans' security, politicians no longer have the luxury of spending weeks debating the merits of, say, midnight basketball programs or saving endangered suckerfish...
...Earmarks happen for obvious reasons...
...We believe this program will improve the tracking and management of project requests and member priorities...
...And perhaps most striking, the appropriators are coming up with tools to streamline the process of earmarking...
...That fact hasn't stopped Congress from setting aside $484,000 for the Food Marketing Policy Center in Storrs, Connecticut...
...In addition, senators must name the pro-ject—"i.e., STOP THE VIOLENCE, or Redsnapper Research"—and "identify the person, department or organization that will be receiving these funds (i.e...
...Says McCain, "The American taxpayer has never been more ill-served than they have in the past year...
...In mid-February, Senate appropriations staffer Nancy Olkewicz sent an e-mail that has the anti-pork crowd astonished by its brazenness...
...Since last fall, when Congress passed the 13 appropriations bills that fund most government operations, analysts at several Washington watchdog groups have combed through the fine print to identify for taxpayers hundreds of pork projects...
...Now, there's no sense of shame...
...But it's certainly the case that there is a trend toward more and more earmarks...
...They're not eating anyone else's food...
...This year, in addition to the member request letter, we are requesting that all offices submit their requests on our Microsoft Access worksheet," she wrote to all 100 Senate offices...
...At a press conference last week to unveil the "Pig Book" that Citizens Against Government Waste releases each year, a reporter pointed to two live pigs at the front of the room, and asked McCain about the difference between the pigs and his fellow members of Congress...
...Most federal funding is awarded on a competitive basis and must be authorized by the appropriate congressional committee...
...According to the numbers compiled by the nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste, pork projects have increased 32 percent this year, reaching a total of $20.1 billion...
...The House Appropriations Committee's public website features earmark request forms for three subcommittees...
...Kansas City suburb • $425,000 for a museum honoring the "Mad Potter of Biloxi" • $1.2 million for soccer fields in California and Washington, D.C...
...Even as members of Congress publicly spoke of the sacrifices necessary to fight a war on terrorism, they managed to slip another $1.6 billion of self-aggrandizing spending into the budget...
...2 million for kilns in Alaska But two developments this year make such obvious waste distinctly less funny: the explosion in the number of pork projects, and the ongoing efforts by congressional appropriators to streamline the pork process, making it easier for their colleagues to fund pet projects...
...There's no embarrassment...
...Legislators apparently feel no need to hide what was once understood as a shady practice...
...The political motivation for earmarks is clear: Members can send press releases and cut ribbons to show how hard they're working on behalf of their constituents...
...The animals are very well behaved, as far as I can tell," McCain replied...
...So now they're using technology, which the government never does, to make porking easier...
...You might think that the attacks on September 11 shifted dramatically the nature of the debate—and spending priorities—in favor of those worthy goals...
...Typically, members want to subvert the competitive process for potential grant recipients in their districts...
...The last-minute money grab that has come to typify the appropriations process has only grown worse...
...This is especially true if such funding requests have previously foundered in the competitive process...
...Daniels didn't buy that argument then, and he doesn't buy it now...
...And in many cases, these earmarks distort worthy government goals...
...Lobbying firms are beefing up their earmark acquisition practices, and colleges and universities are increasingly hiring full-time lobbyists to ensure that they get their share...
...As is the case every year, many of them are hilarious: • $190,000 for a car-racing museum in South Carolina • $273,000 to fight the incursions of the "Goth" subculture in a wealthy Stephen F. Hayes is staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...A would-be grantee in such a case contacts his member of Congress and asks to obtain funding through an earmark...
...An appropria-tor might walk the halls of Congress with requests on slips of paper stuffed in his pocket...
...So a request for funds for, say, a biology research lab at the University of Wisconsin would be judged against similar requests from other schools and, in theory at least, awarded to the highest-performing institution...
...Harris County Sheriff's Department, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources...
...Think again...
...Everyone eats...
...Given the history of how taxpayers have been served, that might be a stretch...
...Indeed, that sum is just the latest in an ongoing effort—$5.5 million since 1989—to assist the center with its research "on food and agricultural marketing and related policy questions...
...In the old days, when there were maybe 100 pork projects, it was simple to keep track of who wanted what project," explains Utt...
...The number of pork projects has nearly quadrupled— from 2,143 to 8,341—in the last three years alone...
...Appropriators huffed and puffed about executive branch encroachment, and they downplayed their excesses by pointing out that earmarking accounts for very little of the overall federal budget...
Vol. 7 • April 2002 • No. 31
