WITH THE EXCEPTION of air and perhaps water, no substance known to man is less in need of marketing than food. Everyone eats. That fact hasn’t stopped Congress from setting aside $484,000 for the Food Marketing Policy Center in Storrs, Connecticut. Indeed, that sum is just the latest in an ongoing effort–$5.5 million since 1989–to assist the center with its research “on food and agricultural marketing and related policy questions.” Since last fall, when Congress passed the 13 appropriations bills that fund most government operations, analysts at several Washington watchdog groups have combed through the fine print to identify for taxpayers hundreds of pork projects. As is the case every year, many of them are hilarious: -$190,000 for a car-racing museum in South Carolina -$273,000 to fight the incursions of the “Goth” subculture in a wealthy Kansas City suburb -$425,000 for a museum honoring the “Mad Potter of Biloxi” -$1.2 million for soccer fields in California and Washington, D.C. -$2 million for kilns in Alaska But two developments this year make such obvious waste distinctly less funny: the explosion in the number of pork projects, and the ongoing efforts by congressional appropriators to streamline the pork process, making it easier for their colleagues to fund pet projects. Most federal funding is awarded on a competitive basis and must be authorized by the appropriate congressional committee. So a request for funds for, say, a biology research lab at the University of Wisconsin would be judged against similar requests from other schools and, in theory at least, awarded to the highest-performing institution. Projects known as “earmarks,” which account for most pork-barrel spending, take both the competition and the oversight out of the process and simply send the money to a congressman’s favored institution. Earmarks happen for obvious reasons. Typically, members want to subvert the competitive process for potential grant recipients in their districts. This is especially true if such funding requests have previously foundered in the competitive process. A would-be grantee in such a case contacts his member of Congress and asks to obtain funding through an earmark. The political motivation for earmarks is clear: Members can send press releases and cut ribbons to show how hard they’re working on behalf of their constituents. Early last year, President Bush’s budget director, Mitch Daniels, launched a campaign to identify and eliminate, or at least minimize, earmarks. Daniels audaciously suggested that what he calls “pieces of spending specifically designated by a member of Congress” be judged on (a) their necessity, and (b) their effectiveness. Appropriators huffed and puffed about executive branch encroachment, and they downplayed their excesses by pointing out that earmarking accounts for very little of the overall federal budget. Daniels didn’t buy that argument then, and he doesn’t buy it now. “Every dollar you spend frivolously comes out of every taxpayer’s pocket,” he says. “And in many cases, these earmarks distort worthy government goals.” You might think that the attacks on September 11 shifted dramatically the nature of the debate–and spending priorities–in favor of those worthy goals. In the face of immediate and grave threats to Americans’ security, politicians no longer have the luxury of spending weeks debating the merits of, say, midnight basketball programs or saving endangered suckerfish. Think again. The last-minute money grab that has come to typify the appropriations process has only grown worse. According to the numbers compiled by the nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste, pork projects have increased 32 percent this year, reaching a total of $20.1 billion. Even as members of Congress publicly spoke of the sacrifices necessary to fight a war on terrorism, they managed to slip another $1.6 billion of self-aggrandizing spending into the budget. Sen. John McCain, with typical outspokenness, calls it “war-profiteering.” Says McCain, “The American taxpayer has never been more ill-served than they have in the past year.” Given the history of how taxpayers have been served, that might be a stretch. But it’s certainly the case that there is a trend toward more and more earmarks. The number of pork projects has nearly quadrupled–from 2,143 to 8,341–in the last three years alone. “Congress is earmarking these things at a pace that is faster than the projects can be completed,” says Ron Utt, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “They can’t even keep up with their own greed.” And perhaps most striking, the appropriators are coming up with tools to streamline the process of earmarking. In mid-February, Senate appropriations staffer Nancy Olkewicz sent an e-mail that has the anti-pork crowd astonished by its brazenness. “This year, in addition to the member request letter, we are requesting that all offices submit their requests on our Microsoft Access worksheet,” she wrote to all 100 Senate offices. “We believe this program will improve the tracking and management of project requests and member priorities.” The e-mail asks each Senate office to submit a list of pet projects, along with staff and local contacts. In addition, senators must name the project–“i.e., STOP THE VIOLENCE, or Redsnapper Research”–and “identify the person, department or organization that will be receiving these funds (i.e. Harris County Sheriff’s Department, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources).” “Apparently they were getting so many requests that they couldn’t keep track,” says David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste. “So now they’re using technology, which the government never does, to make porking easier.” Legislators apparently feel no need to hide what was once understood as a shady practice. The House Appropriations Committee’s public website features earmark request forms for three subcommittees. “In the old days, when there were maybe 100 pork projects, it was simple to keep track of who wanted what project,” explains Utt. “An appropriator might walk the halls of Congress with requests on slips of paper stuffed in his pocket. Now, there’s no sense of shame. There’s no embarrassment. It’s an indication of just how out of control this is.” Matthew Lesko, the dork in the purple suit who screams about “free government money” in his TV commercials, isn’t the only one who has recognized this giveaway. Lobbying firms are beefing up their earmark acquisition practices, and colleges and universities are increasingly hiring full-time lobbyists to ensure that they get their share. At a press conference last week to unveil the “Pig Book” that Citizens Against Government Waste releases each year, a reporter pointed to two live pigs at the front of the room, and asked McCain about the difference between the pigs and his fellow members of Congress. “The animals are very well behaved, as far as I can tell,” McCain replied. “They’re not eating anyone else’s food.” Stephen F. Hayes is staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
