Funding for Alaska's "bridge to nowhere" has become the symbol of Washington's lust to throw money around, even on the most foolish things. So Congress, embarrassed, has done something about that.
No, it didn't save the money. It just tried to hide it a little better.
First, a little about the bridge. It does have a destination. It would link the community of Ketchikan, which has 8,000 or so people, with the island of Gravina, which is home to about 50 people and Ketchikan's airport. A ferry runs between Ketchikan and Gravina, but it costs $6 a car and Ketchikanians sometimes have to wait 15 to 30 minutes for it.
The answer from Congress? Spend $223 million for the bridge, equal to about $28,000 per Ketchikanian. The bridge was one of 6,000 special projects earmarked in the $286 billion transportation bill Congress passed this year.
The Ketchikan bridge became the butt of late-night TV jokes. "Bridge-to-nowhere" became a simple shorthand for wasteful spending on Capitol Hill.
Some in Congress recognized how stupid this was, when the federal government faces an $8 trillion debt and the costs of rebuilding hurricane-battered Louisiana and Mississippi. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) tried to redirect the bridge's funding to help repair Gulf Coast bridges damaged by Hurricane Katrina. But that brought some apoplectic sputtering from Alaska's senior senator, Republican Ted Stevens, who threatened to quit the Senate if Coburn succeeded.
Stevens, who happens to be the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, prevailed.
Just before Congress headed out of town for the Thanksgiving recess, though, it took away the special authorization for the Ketchikan bridge. It also took the designation away for $229 million to build a bridge between Anchorage and the Knik area of Alaska. That bridge project was a favorite of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who happens to be the chairman of the House Transportation Committee.
A victory for fiscal responsibility? Hardly. The money won't stay in the Treasury. The money won't be sent to the hurricane-battered coast. The money will stay with Alaska. Only now, Alaska will be free to spend the money on just about any transit project it wants--including the infamous bridge to nowhere.
Keep in mind that figure of $28,000 per Ketchikanian.
It is just a little more than what every citizen of the U.S. would have to pay to clear the $8 trillion national debt.
