The bills for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will likely approach $250 billion. We are fighting a war in Iraq. And yet, as is the sad tradition in American politics, pork barrel spending continues largely unabated. NPR's All Things Considered yesterday reported that the city of Bozeman, Montana is considering giving back $4 million in federal funds designated to build Bozeman a parking garage citing the financial needs of areas along the Gulf Coast. The Truth Laid Bare blog has established the Porkbusters site to try to eliminate some of the wasteful spending that could be used to help pay the repair costs for these enormous disasters.
As Alex de Tocqueville said 175 years ago, "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
Here are some of my favorite examples of incredibly wasteful spending at this critical time:
- Alaska's "bridge to nowhere": Cost $233 million -- will connect Gravina Island (population less than 50) to Ketchikan (pop. 8,000) by a bridge nearly as long as the Golden Gate and higher than the Brooklyn Bridge. This will save the residents from having to take a 6 minute ferry ride that currently serves the area. Alaska's lone Congressman, Rep. Don Young, who is the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, also gained these fatty gems for his home state: a $200 million bridge connecting Anchorage to a rural port so insignificant even the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce tried to block the project, and $15 million in seed money for a 68-mile, $284 million access road to Juneau. (This last one is opposed by not only the Environmental Protection Agency but a majority of the area's residents.)
- $37 million to widen and extend the main access road to Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters
- $2.32 million for "aesthetic purpose” improvements to Route 118 - The Ronald Reagan Freeway - in California. As Porkbusters notes: "This is particularly ironic considering that Reagan vetoed a highway bill containing “just” 152 earmarks."
- $6.2 million to construct a bridge in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, which might be ok if only there was a road to connect to the bridge.
- $50 million to build a rainforest tourist destination in Coralville, Iowa.
- $1.5 million for two North Carolina forest recreation centers for Appalachian folk programs including forest crafts.
- $2.14 million for research and marketing for winemakers -- in OHIO.
- $2.75 million for the National Packard Museum in Ohio, a private museum open five hours a day that features vintage Packard automobiles.
Town May Reject 'Pork' Money to Help Gulf Areas
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All Things Considered, September 25, 2005 · Monday night, the city of Bozeman, Mont., may do something unheard of. Congress earmarked $4 million in federal funds to build Bozeman a parking garage. Now the city commission will consider a proposal to give the money back, citing the financial needs of areas along the Gulf Coast.
Estimates of what it may cost to rebuild the Gulf Coast run as high as $200 billion. With the federal government already running a large deficit, some are calling on politicians to return the so-called "pork" spending that has been allocated to their districts.
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