Wonder what Reagan would say?

by David Grand
August 31, 2005

That's the rhetorical question Sen. McCain asked in commenting on the $2.3 million for landscaping along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California, which was one of some 6,000 pork projects (valued at $24 billion) that Congress tacked on to the $286.4 billion highway bill.

Hogwash, is what he undoubtedly would've said, the same as he would to spending, for instance, $220 million for connecting the town of Grayson (population 50) to the Alaskan mainland; $1.5 million to transport chilled water from Lake Ontario to Lake Onondaga; $3 million for study of grape genetics in Geneva, New York; $2.3 million for animal waste research in Bowling Green, Kentucky; $515,000 for brown tree snake management in Guam; $347,000 for grapefruit/drug interaction research in Florida; $25,000 to study mariachi music in Clark County, Nevada; $250,000 for Alaska's statehood celebration; $99,000 to train students in the motor sports industry in Virginia; $167,000 for horn fly research in Alabama; $150,000 for fishing rationalization (?) research in Alaska; and $97,000 for the French-Ameican Heritage Center in Lewiston, Maine.

Fittingly, the bill was signed on Aug. 10 by President Bush in House Speaker Hastert's Illinois district, which has the third highest amount of highway pork in the nation. And due to the efforts of House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, Alaska (the third-least populated state) got the fourth most money. (No wonder the $231 million bridge in Anchorage is named "Don Young's Way.")

And even the emergency funding of $82 billion to support the US military's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan was loaded with pork projects, including money for the Pentagon's "wish-list" that have nothing to do with helping the troops.

But like rote, the Pentagon has made annual requests for emergency funding since the invasion of Iraq, which begs the question, as to why can't the Pentagon-with an annual budget in excess of $400 billion-include such contingency funds in its budgeting process, instead of coming up with last-minute supplemental requests? The answer: because doing do would then require Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to justify expenses to Congress. And he needs that, like he needs a hole in the head.

Pork projects (that Congress calls "earmarks," when pigs ears would be a more apt term) have expanded each year, from under 2,000 six years ago to over 11,000 in the recently passed 2005 omnibus appropriations bill.

And as Sen. McCain said in commenting on that pending bill in November 20, 2004, "It's ironic that we're here a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday; for if you're a lobbyist or special interest you have a lot to be thankful for in this bill, because it's really just one big, fat turkey, not filled with traditional stuffing but packed with pork."

According to the Heritage Foundation, a major factor for the skyrocketing number of pork projects is that Congress has over the last few years increasingly bypassed federal agencies, governors and mayors by selecting grant recipients on its own, unlike how it was done historically with Congress funding grant programs, and then asking them to award the grants competitively on merit.

But Congress isn't about to go back to the old way. For what else then would congressmen have to boast about to the folks back home, other than being the best hog-callers this side of the Mississippi with their "woooweee, pig, pig, pig."