Considering that it’s an election year and a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found getting rid of earmarks to be among most voters’ top concerns, it’s puzzling that members of Congress have made only limited progress toward eliminating such federal boondoggling. But there are some encouraging signs here and there.
For example, the House Appropriations Committee earlier this week adopted an amendment to the $67.8 billion Transportation-Treasury bill to preclude use of any federal money to build those infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska. The amendment was offered by Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who was understandably elated when his proposal was approved by the full committee, saying “Passage of my amendment sends a strong signal to the American people that the time for this expensive style of federal spending has passed.”
Kirk may be forgiven a little election-year exaggeration, perhaps, but the truth is the Bridge to Nowhere are anything but dead. The full House still must vote on the bill containing Kirk’s measure; then there will be a House-Senate conference to iron out differences between the two chambers’ competing versions. Sen. Ted Stevens, the Old Bull Republican from Alaska who threatened last year to resign if the Senate banned earmarking, can be expected to exert his considerable powers to influence his colleagues to keep the federal dollars flowing.
Congress directed $231 million without strings to the state of Alaska last year after the furor over earmarking the same amount. The proposed bridge would link the 50 residents of Gravina Island to Ketchikan. Proponents say substantial and much-needed development would follow. Opponents don’t deny that, but question why the whole country should have to pay the freight for a project that clearly will benefit primarily Alaska.
Then there is the “Railroad to Nowhere,” which is an earmark championed by Mississippi’s two GOP senators, Thad Cochran and Trent Lott. The former is chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, while the latter is the former Senate Majority Leader. The railroad is on the Mississippi coast and CSX spent nearly $300 million to repair damage sustained during Hurricane Katrina. A contentious debate erupted when the public learned Cochran and Lott earmarked $700 million in an emergency military and hurricane relief spending bill to tear up the tracks and move them a very short distance inland to accommodate development along the coast, especially the burgeoning casino industry there.
Despite House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s declaration that the Cochran-Lott earmark was dead on arrival in the lower chamber, it is far from clear that House and Senate conferees on the emergency appropriation containing the measure have agreed to drop it. Meanwhile, U.S. Army officials are cutting back on purchases of things like spare parts and needed supplies for troops in the field as they wait for Congress to make up its mind on earmarks.
