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July 9, 2007

Congress keeps its pets quiet

By David Harsanyi

Denver Post

One of the countless reasons Congress' approval rating hovers in the mid-20-percent range is that the place stinks to high heaven from all the pork.

Pork, also known as earmarks - money designated for specific projects and hidden in spending bills - is often nothing more than kickbacks to constituents and friends. Legal slush funds added in committee.

No debate. No discussion. A Washington tradition.

This year, amazingly enough, at least 36,000 earmarks have been requested by members of Congress. So many, in fact, that House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, D-Wis., claimed he and his staff simply didn't have time to evaluate all of them.

You may not realize that only recently have the names of those elected officials receiving earmarked funds been revealed in spending bills. This was a victory for taxpayers.

Voters, though, may still wonder why they aren't permitted a peek at the sorts of funding our representatives in Washington are requesting. One would think such transparency is a no-brainer for anyone who believes in clean government.

Not so. When CNN directed its interns to ask every member of the Senate and House to disclose their requests, the only one in Colorado's delegation to say yes was Democratic Congressman and senatorial candidate Mark Udall. He asked for more than $170 million.

Subsequently, Congressman and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo has released his request list. The self-proclaimed fiscal conservative is asking for about $226 million for local pet projects. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave followed suit by releasing her information - she is seeking more than

$112 million in earmarks.

Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn, an outspoken critic of pork, hasn't released his requested earmarks list as far as I can tell. Perhaps it's just an oversight.

Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette, John Salazar and Ed Perlmutter - the latter two ostensibly elected in 2006 to help clean up the putrid mess that is Washington - see no reason, as of yet, to clue in voters.

Neither do Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar.

You see, when it comes to waste and secrecy, there is extraordinary bipartisan cooperation in Washington.

Take the Army Corps of Engineers' budget. When the Energy and Water spending bill was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee recently, it contained earmarks that the agency didn't even request.

One such earmark, for $2 million, was put there by the duo of Allard and Salazar for recreational lakes.

In truth, elected officials will almost always fly home and boast about the money they've secured for local interests - sometimes it's needed; most often, it's not. But rest assured, such braggadocio is unending in Alaska and West Virginia, where they're perpetually busy spending your tax dollars on their pet projects.

It's difficult to believe that in 1988, President Ronald Reagan vetoed a transportation bill because it contained eight earmarks. Eight. Well, in 2005, a $286 billion transportation bill included 6,200 earmarks costing the American people more than $20 billion. It was signed by President George W. Bush, who, incidentally, is about as fiscally conservative as Liberace.

This is the bill that included the now-infamous Bridge to Nowhere, which was to cost taxpayers more than $200 million and finally allowed Americans to see the gravity of this issue.

Colorado political aides I spoke with last week claimed that releasing the list of earmark requests creates a lot of confusion, chaos and bad feelings and is unfair to those who don't receive help.

I don't buy any part of their explanation.

If a politician is uncomfortable with the pork he or she is demanding, perhaps there is something inappropriate about the request. If politicians are scared to hurt someone's feelings, perhaps they're in the wrong business.

And if our representatives are afraid to let voters see what they're up to, obviously, they're not doing the right thing.

And there is another always- dependable answer to the question of wasteful spending: They can always say no.

David Harsanyi's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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