Let’s say that, unexpectedly, your only child gets a full scholarship to a good university. Since you just bought her a new car for graduation, the college fund into which you’ve paid since her first grade is now freed up for other things, and you indulge yourselves by buying that convertible sports car you always wanted.
You write the check for $40,000, and off you go...into a two-month nightmare of mechanical failures, leaky roof, leaking oil from a warped cylinder head, a fire in the wiring...in short, your dream car turns out to be a real lemon. You finally get fed up, take the car in to the sales manager and demand they take the car back. Reluctantly, they do so, and you sign all the necessary papers transferring ownership back to the dealer. Then, however, instead of getting your money back, you find out that an obscure state law allows them to keep your $40,000!
Outrageous, you say?
Of course it is. But multiply that figure by 10,000, and that’s exactly what your Congress has done to American taxpayers. Let me explain –
Remember those two bridges for which over $400 million were “earmarked” in the $285 billion recent transportation bill? Just in case you’re unfamiliar with Congressional workings, that “earmarked” means a pig’s ear, for these are pork barrel projects simply added to the annual appropriations bill, without benefit of public scrutiny, debate or a vote. These projects, in effect, “buy” votes back home by providing engineering, construction and administrative jobs, orders for steel, concrete and other materials for local industries, etc. Over $24 billion of such pork is included in that massive transportation bill, much of it having nothing to do with highways or transportation. Oh, yeah...those two bridges? One was to an island with only 50 inhabitants, who must now take a fifteen-minute ferry ride to and from the mainland. The other, to have been named “Don Young Way,” after the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Alaskan Representative Don Young, was the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” It seems that the public outcry about such wasteful spending has resulted in the cancellation of those two more egregious examples of Congressional largesse (with our money). Trouble is...the over $400 million is still going to be spent in Alaska.
That’s right...we don’t even get the bridges as monuments to Congressional arrogance and wastefulness, but we still have to shell out all that money! Folks, that is a “solution” that only makes sense to those who have been too long in Washington, D.C.
Perhaps it’s because of the threat made by Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens (the most prodigious pork barrel devotee for decades) when Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn recently introduced amendments to transfer those bridge funds to the more immediate needs resulting from hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Resembling nothing so much as Foghorn Leghorn, the pontificating cartoon rooster, Stevens vowed he would quit the Senate if his state’s pork (excuse me, they never refer to it as such)...if his state’s crucial and necessary funding was tampered with. So maybe leaving the funds to be spent as Alaskan state and local officials see fit is a compromise to keep the senator in office?
Or maybe it’s a sop to House Appropriations Chairman Young, whose thinly veiled threat that he “will be in Congress a long time” is more than idle chatter. In his position, he can authorize or withhold funding for any legislative expenditures, a fact not lost on his fellow Congressmen, especially those who initiated the move to cancel the bridges. If they cancel the bridges – which have become a major embarrassment to Congress – it appears that they’re “cleaning up their own house,” but if the money still goes to Alaska, then Representative Young can’t be too vindictive, now can he?
I don’t know what the reasoning is (if “reason” can be applied to such chicanery); I only know that the American taxpayers are getting...well, something that should at least be accompanied by a kiss. The point I want to make, though, is that this is not...I repeat, NOT...an abnormal or extraordinary event in Congress. This outrageous, wasteful and irresponsible spending of tax money like drunken sailors on shore leave goes on year in and year out.
Moreover, it’s not just liberal Democrats or even “moderate” (whatever the hell that is) Republicans, but supposedly Conservative Republicans who dive into the pigsty for all that “free” money. Coburn’s amendments were supported by only thirteen senators (and three of them – Allen, Hagel and McCain – will be vying for the presidential nomination, so they can bray that this vote shows their “fiscal responsibility”), one of them a Democrat. I wonder...when they know it’s a sure thing, do members facing tough re-election campaigns get a pass to vote against controversial legislation, knowing the votes are there to pass it anyway?
If that seems “too cynical” to you, then how do you characterize Congress’ decision to cancel the construction of these boondoggles yet still spend the money? I just read that federal government spending is $22,000 per household. You do know that the government doesn’t create any money, right? They only have our tax money to spend, and so much of it is wasted in just such boondoggles, or in social engineering schemes, agricultural subsidies that mostly go to agribusiness or wealthy landowners, artificial price supports (e.g., milk), etc.
A decade or so ago there was a big ruckus raised when it was reported that the government was paying $100 each for toilet seats and over $300 for ballpeen hammers. Congress routinely uses that same mentality when spending our taxes, only magnified many times. Conservative wag P.J. O’Rourke said, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” We know better than to give teenage boys whiskey and the car keys, but what are you going to do about Congress?
That’s right...you. This is, after all, our government; you know...”we, the people of the united States...” No, that’s not a typo, but the way it was written originally by our Founders; the idea was of a group of sovereign States, “united” to form a nation. Of course, you’re now used to the federal government being the “United States,” aren’t you? Which is exactly why we’re in such a mess today, with federal bureaucrats and Congressmen continually expanding their authority and privilege and power, to the detriment of our own. They do so, however, only because we allow them to. When, if ever, will the American people awaken to the lunacy of allowing amoral, insatiably power-hungry and self-aggrandizing politicians free rein over our lives? Remember the smarmy guys and gals who were always running for class president? Well, they grew up...and they’re running the government!
Another O’Rourke quote comes to mind: “Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.” But the way Congress operates, when they’re done with us, they keep the money...and we don’t even get a kiss.
