December 5, 2004

Many Contenders Vie for This Year’s
Oink Award

To market, to market

to buy a fat pig.

Home again, home again

dancing a jig.

Every year at this time, taxpayers are reminded that Mother Goose is alive and well in the halls of Congress.

Our lawmakers dance with joy when "earmark" projects – otherwise known as pork -- fatten on tax dollars.

There are 13 appropriation bills in a fiscal year budget. Four of them are for major activities such as the Defense Department.

The remaining nine is an "omnibus" package for specific projects inserted into a catch-all simply because a lawmaker wants it. Members refer to them as "how-to-get-elected tickets."

Omnibus measures come toward the end of the year. Taxpayers are in a gifting mood. Give a little, get a lot.

This year’s grab bag of 11,000 earmarked items weighs in at $388 billion – small potatoes for a $2.4 trillion budget.

But as the legendary Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen used to explain in sonorous tones: "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon it adds up to real money."

Usually the omnibus bill whizzes through Congress – who wants to steal Christmas? This year, some Republican killjoys are dragging their feet.

They are shocked, shocked! An obscure line in the 1,690-page bill would give chairmen of the several appropriations committees – and their un-elected staff assistants – authority to access income tax returns of Americans.

President Bush says he will sign the package if that provision is deleted.

Not to worry, it will be.

Nonetheless, it is disappointing that W will roll over when he has promised -- promised! -- to cut spending.

President Reagan – and after him House Speaker Newt Gingrich -- vowed to stand firm and then went wobbly. "Grinch" is an unbearable epithet for freely elected pols.

Remember when President Clinton shut down the national parks and the machinery cranking out Social Security checks?

Blood gushed through Capitol Hill scuppers. Gingrich who?

It is hard to choose this year’s Oink Award winner. There is so much fat. Here are some leading contenders:

• $200 million – for a bridge linking Ketchikan, Alaska, with Gravina Island, population 50 (my favorite).
• $3.5 million – for bus acquisition in Atlanta, Ga.
• $3 million – for the Grape Genetics Center, Geneva, N.Y.
• $2 million – for kitchen relocation in  North Star Borough, Fairbanks, Alaska.
• $1.5 million – for a demonstration project to transport naturally chilled water from Lake Ontario to Lake Onondaga, N.Y.

These are a few of the biggies. They undoubtedly are worthwhile for the communities and industries benefited.

Yet, it is fair to suggest that benefiting entities should finance improvements – not by taxpayers elsewhere.

It is in the realm of boondoggles that taxpayers gag. To wit:  

• $500 thousand – for Kincaid Park Soccer and Nordic Ski Center in Anchorage.
• $250 thousand – for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.
• $250 thousand -- for "traffic calming" in Windemere, Fla.
• $200 thousand – for Aviation Hall of Fame.
• $200 thousand – for Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum, Greenville, Texas.
• $100 thousand – for High Falls Film Festival, Rochester, N.Y.
• $97 thousand -- for Franco-American Heritage Center, Lewiston, Maine.
•  $l50 thousand -- for Coca-cola Space Science Center, Columbus, Ga.
• $100 thousand – for Punxsutawney (Groundhog) Weather Museum in Pennsylvania.
• $80 thousand – for San Diego Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.
• $25 thousand – to develop a curriculum to study mariachi music in Clark County schools, Nevada.

One could continue, but heartburn sets in.

Paul Guessing, government affairs director of the National Taxpayers Union, says: "The omnibus bill has been held to 4-percent of the budget – an improvement over previous years.

"It may not be an outright disaster compared to some of its predecessors, but the legislation still has many drawbacks that earn it the title of ‘debacle.’"

Sometime back, Congress tried to control its oinky tendencies by passing a law giving presidents the power to veto specific budget lines.

The Supreme Court ruled against this approach on grounds it would be "unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’ power of the purse."

Agreed. However, it would not be uncon to outlaw "earmarks" that did not first have a full vote of the proper appropriation committee.

We can dream, can’t we?

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be reached at linwms@lindseywilliams.org