Monitoring a “Moronic” Proposal
by David Benzion · 09/14/2005 12:33 pmFrom an editorial ($) in today’s Wall Street Journal:
Some public-spirited folks in Bozeman, Montana, have come up with a wonderful idea to help Uncle Sam offset some of the $62 billion federal cost of Hurricane Katrina relief. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports that Montanans from both sides of the political aisle have petitioned the city council to give the feds back a $4 million earmark to pay for a parking garage in the just-passed $286 billion highway bill. As one of these citizens, Jane Shaw, told us: "We figure New Orleans needs the money right now a lot more than we need extra downtown parking space."
Which got us thinking: Why not cancel all of the special-project pork in the highway bill and dedicate the $25 billion in savings to emergency relief on the Gulf Coast? Is it asking too much for Richmond, Indiana, to give up $3 million for its hiking trail, or Newark, New Jersey, to put a hold on its $2 million bike path?
Brilliant.
And in the face of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, couldn’t Alaskans put a hold on the infamous $454 million earmark for the two "bridges to nowhere" that will serve a town of 50 people? That same half a billion dollars could rebuild thousands of homes for suffering New Orleans evacuees.
Who could possibly object? Politicians, of course.
One obstacle to this idea apparently will be Don Young, the House Transportation Committee Chairman who captured the funds for Alaska in the first place. A spokesman in his office told the Anchorage Daily News that the pork-for-relief swap was "moronic."
Moronic to a tax-and-spender, perhaps, but good old fashion common sense to those of us beyond the beltway. And note this bit of poetic justice:
The pork reduction plan is particularly appropriate as a response to Katrina, because we have learned in recent days that one reason that money was not spent on fortifying the levees in New Orleans was that hundreds of millions of dollars were rerouted to glitzier earmarked projects throughout the state of Louisiana.
To summarize:
We’re hearing all sorts of bad ideas about how to offset the $62 billion of spending already authorized for Hurricane Katrina relief. Cancel the Bush tax cuts, raise the gasoline tax by $1 a gallon, increase deficit spending, and sharply cut spending on national defense and the war in Iraq. In Washington, it seems, everything is expendable except for the slabs of bacon that are carved out of the federal fisc to ensure re-election.
As the official online voice for right-wing Texans, LST would like to wholeheartedly second the Wall Street Journal’s endorsement of this concept.
Which is why we have amended a very useful chart put together by "Taxpayers for Common Sense", a non-partisan (although we suspect they lean Left) group that broke down, by state, every pork-barrel project in the recently passed highway bill.
In case it isn’t readily obvious, LST has added the two columns on the right side of the table.
|
State |
Number of Pork Projects in Highway Bill |
Value of Pork Projects in Highway Bill |
Number of Pork Projects from Highway Bill Politicians Have Decided to “Sacrifice” for Katrina Relief |
Value of Politician’s Sacrifice of Pork Projects for Katrina Relief |
|
California |
546 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Illinois |
330 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Alaska |
120 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
New York |
494 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Texas |
231 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Missouri |
97 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Pennsylvania |
423 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Florida |
232 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Ohio |
245 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Oklahoma |
66 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Oregon |
133 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Virginia |
152 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
New Jersey |
179 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Louisiana |
112 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Michigan |
169 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Washington |
144 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Tennessee |
192 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Minnesota |
147 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Georgia |
273 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Alabama |
80 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Wisconsin |
88 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Iowa |
149 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Arkansas |
66 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
North Carolina |
129 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Montana |
40 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Nevada |
49 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Colorado |
94 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Maryland |
104 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
West Virginia |
25 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Kentucky |
68 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Mississippi |
76 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Connecticut |
104 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Massachusetts |
127 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Vermont |
55 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Indiana |
146 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Utah |
78 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Rhode Island |
50 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
South Carolina |
60 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
South Dakota |
57 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
North Dakota |
32 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Kansas |
55 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Maine |
54 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Nebraska |
57 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Hawaii |
25 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
New Mexico |
40 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Delaware |
27 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Idaho |
29 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Arizona |
41 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Wyoming |
17 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
New Hampshire |
32 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
U.S. Territories |
36 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
D.C. |
7 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
Total: |
6,373 |
$24,215,018,641 |
0 |
$ 0.00 |
Check back frequently to watch those "zeros" skyrocket upwards, as America’s political class steps up to the plate and proves it can relinquish some of the perks and privileges it enjoys in the face of an unprecedented national catastrophe.
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14 Responses to “Monitoring a “Moronic” Proposal”Search
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“”Check back frequently to watch those “zeros” skyrocket upwards, as America’s political class steps up to the plate and proves it can relinquish some of the perks and privileges it enjoys in the face of an unprecedented national catastrophe.”"
Surely you jest!
I wrote our senators and suggested that over a week ago as I think many have. The Senators REALLY don’t give up a thing WE are Pig Farmers who supply the pork!
I think it is a great idea, but the likely hood of it is zip.
I personally would like to see a very specific breakdown of why exactly it will cost 62 billion to rebuild the gulf coast.
As for a 454 million dollar bridge in the middle of the Alaskan wildreness surely the seals and polarbears need a way to get home too
With the absorption of perhaps 100,000 evacuees and all the other stresses on good Houstonians, how in good conscience could you advocate cutting out Earmark 3440, a mere million for a Main Street pedestrian mall downtown. Is not the loss of Bourbon Street enough, to think that you’ld deprive Metro of a pedestrian mall that is only a million dollar drop in the federal barrel. The humanity, spare earmark 3440 at the very least.
Well we can certainly give back the $9.6 million for high priority item #3386: “Construction of projects that relieve congestion in and around the Texas Medical Center Complex” — that one’s already done. (Isn’t that what they built the light rail system for?)
Maybe Ted Kennedy can donate what he spends at the bar each night. That should buy some high end housing for someone.
Hurrumph, Give up the pork! Why do we need a diaster to give up the pork? I have a much better idea. Why don’t we give up on incumbent politicians and vote the @#$tards out of office.
Simple
Yes!
Give up the pork. And here is how it is done. It a real simple step.
Do not buy bacon or pork chops. Especially if it comes from soon to be hurricane ravaged North Carolina. Oh the humanity of them pigs. Pig waste in the water? Tainted?
This will cause the pork lobbyists to demand that pork be put back in no matter the cost and will blame FEMA and Bush for not protecting the swine.
“Those pigs had no chance. Bush hates pigs.”
The argument will be that most MRE’s that feed our soldiers are pork based and we have now jeopardized our troops for the sake of FEMA/Bush/Ophelia. The shame!
Backside of that is this. If we cut the pork, the chickens all get the bird flu and cattle have gawd knows what diseases (and will require everyone eating only at Ruth’s Chris to have germ free beef).
This conspiracy goes right on up to Del Frisco head of beef counsel.
The sad part is that Bush gets hit with a bad blow with females. Katrina, maybe Ophelia.
Clinton had Monica. Which as we are to understand was not a bad blow.
I would take the cigar over the wind anyday.
All for now,
Deke
Yep, still looking at those zeros. I know they’ll be changing real soon. I’ll be right here… watching… Yep, any time now….
I’m feeling the porking, how ’bout you?
Yep - we’ve been repeatedly ‘porked’ by Congress. I think it’s about time we put a stop to it. If you can’t tell, I am in a real ‘throw the bums out’ mood.
Isn’t it a bit deceptive to label ALL highway projects as pork in the budget? Surely you would agree that at least some of these undertakings are necessary or worthwhile? Not the “bridges to nowhere,” mind you…
I bet most of them are, though. That’s the problem - so many of them to scrutinize, that it’s easy to slip in stupid ones.
Anyone seen the 1972 movie Deliverance starring Burt Reynolds?
We the people are Ned Beatty and Congress is the Hillbilly mountain man.
Sqeal like a pig, taxpayer boy.
I remember when conservatives were against big goverment and deficit spending. Here’s a quote from Ronald Reagan:
“For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.
You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?” —Inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1981