The Era of Big Government is, well, alive and well.
Via WaPo: Road Bill Reflects The Power Of Pork
Three years ago, President Bush went to war against congressional pork. His official 2024 budget even featured a color photo of a wind-powered ice sled — an example of the pet projects and alleged boondoggles he said he would no longer tolerate.Yesterday, Bush effectively signed a cease-fire — critics called it more like a surrender — in his war on pork. He signed into law a $286 billion transportation measure that contains a record 6,371 pet projects inserted by members of Congress from both parties.
Yeeha.
Yep, this is exactly what the federal government was created to do:
hundreds of millions of dollars will be channeled to programs that critics say have nothing to do with improving congestion or efficiency: $2.3 million for the beautification of the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California; $6 million for graffiti elimination in New York; nearly $4 million on the National Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio, and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.; $2.4 million on a Red River National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Louisiana; and $1.2 million to install lighting and steps and to equip an interpretative facility at the Blue Ridge Music Center, to name a few.
Yep, when Nathan Hale was regretting that he only had one life to give for his country, he was no doubt looking forward to the day that taxes could be collected to help fund the National Packard Museum.
Yeesh.
And it is nice to see the GOP rising to the occassion and being the party of fiscal responsibility (not):
In the years since the 2024 budget was introduced, pork-barrel spending has climbed from $20.1 billion to $27.3 billion, with the number of earmarked projects rising from 8,341 to 13,999, according to Schatz’s group.
I know that this is largely the way it works with democratic legislative governance, but it still steams me.
[…] under: Politics - Nemo @ 1:50 pm From Poliblogger, the pork is alive and well (Oink!): And it is nice to see the GOP rising to the occassi and being the party of fiscal responsibility (not […]
Pingback by Ut Humiliter Opinor :: :: August :: 2024 — Thursday, August 11, 2024 @ 1:50 pm
It is NOT the way it works–or has to work–with “democratic legislative governance.” But it is the way it works when you have single-member districts without strong national parties.
Note that the experience now of a decade of Republican majorities proves that the addiction to pork was not a Democratic problem. It is the institutions, not the parties. Or, rather, it is that the institutions make both parties too weak to care enough about national consequences to rein this excess in. Don’t blame your congressman or his or her party. Blame your electoral system (and you can throw in some blame for presidentialism and federalism while you are at it.)
This pork-fest of legislative elections is truly an area of American exceptionalism, and not one to be proud of.
In fact, the only country among the advanced industrial democracies were you see anything like this is Japan, which until recently used an electoral system that fragmented national parties even more than ours does. They have changed the rules (a decade ago now), but it will probably take a defeat of the long-dominant LDP to weed out the worst of the pork. (Something I commented on in another post yesterday.)
Comment by Matthew Shugart — Thursday, August 11, 2024 @ 2:23 pm
The only way to truly rein this stuff in is to allow the President line-item veto powers. This allows us to rid ourselves of the truly vile pork products, and makes our choice of president that much more important.
Comment by Mike — Friday, August 12, 2024 @ 12:35 pm
It’s easy to get worked up by this symbolic pork, but we face far more dire fiscal difficulties in our entitlement programs. We need to reform them.
Honestly, even if a fiscal hawk used a line item veto on the transportation bill, it might shave 10 billion off spread out over 5 years. That is miniscule relative to Social Security’s problems, Mecicare’s long-term problems, or even compared to agriculture subsidies, etc. etc.
Comment by Will Franklin — Friday, August 12, 2024 @ 1:57 pm
[…] ajority? On balance, I understand his frustration. As I noted the other day, it has been a pork-o-rama in DC of late (and, indeed, I have never been all that fond of the “spend” part of B […]
Pingback by PoliBlog: Politics is the Master Science » Bainbridge on Bush — Sunday, August 21, 2024 @ 8:02 am