Pork-barrel spending: a raw deal in any form - Fair Comment

Insight on the News, March 21, 1994 by Thomas A. Schatz

Pinching from the U.S. Treasury for the folks back home -- also known as pork-barrel spending -- has long been one of Washington's more unseemly traditions. It is transacted with a wink and nod behind closed doors, by entrenched elements of the "old boy" network. and like many other institutionally ingrained conventions, the practice yields only grudgingly to the entreaties of reformers or crushing fiscal realities.

Nothing illustrates that unpleasant truth more than the Citizens Against Government Waste's 1994 Congressional Pig Book Summary, which lays before dismayed taxpayers a veritable pupu platter of pork: 97 ill-gotten federal spending projects worth more than $1.2 billion, culled from 13 fiscal year 1994 appropriations bills. These 97 projects represent only a fraction of the nearly $6 billion in procedural pork we found this year.

In the broadest sense, "pork" refers to congressional spending that circumvents established budgetary procedures. CAGW uses seven procedurally based criteria to define pork. All the projects featured in our Pig Book meet one or more of the following criteria: requested by only one chamber of Congress; greatly exceeded the president's budget request or the previous year's funding; served only a local interest; not specifically authorized; not competitively awarded; or not the subject of a congressional hearing.

Pork can assume any number of forms: military pork, academic pork, farm pork, park pork and even court pork, the latest trend sweeping Congress. But any way you cut it, it still adds up to a raw deal for taxpayers. Some L994 Pig Book lowlights:

* $120 million for a single federal courthouse in Phoenix in the home state of Democratic Sen. Dennis DeConcini, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government. This Taj Mahal of justice is 38,441 square feet larger than originally planned, adding $9 million in construction costs and $1 million per year in maintenance costs. In all, $7S6 million is slated to be spent on federal courthouses in fiscal year 1994, in spite of a warning by the General Accounting Office that "taxpayers risk overpaying by at least $1.1 billion in the next 10 years for courthouses that the judiciary cannot justify."

* $104 million added in two separate appropriations bills for Corridor L highway construction in West Virginia, home state of Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, CAGW's uncontested "King of the Road."

* A cool $100 million added in a Defense appropriations conference committee for "complementary wide-body aircraft," a hedge against the complete collapse of the troubled C-17 program. One prominent builder of wide-body commercial aircraft just happens to be based in the home state of House appropriator Norm Dicks, a Democrat from Washington -- probably nothing more than a "coincidence."

* $2.4 million for 200 parking spaces for 18 federal employees in the district of House appropriator Jim Lightfoot, a Republican from Iowa, who is said to have heard voices telling him: "If you build it, they will come'"

* $1.4 million added in the Commerce, State, and Justice appropriations conference for Indiana State University, which is in the district of House Republican John Myers. Perhaps the school can afford to offer Fiscal Responsibility 101.

* $140,000 for swine research at the University of Minnesota in the district of Democratic Rep. Bruce ports that researchers from the university have established an observation spot on Capitol Hill could not be confirmed.

In addition to needlessly driving up the deficit, there are several other reasons why congressional pork isn't kosher.

First, it serves as a linchpin in the incumbency protection racket and is a subtle corrupter of the political system. In effect, pork practitioners seek to bribe Americans with their own money -- carting off a sizable share of their earnings and resources to Washington before handing them back a few scraps and crowing about it in taxpayer-financed newsletters.

While some pork practitioners are still deified by their constituents for ripping off the Treasury, taxpayers able to grasp the bigger picture are beginning to resent the trickle-down theory of constituent service, knowing that their resources could be put to far better use by staying home in the first place.

Second, pork spending results in an inequitable and inefficient distribution of federal largess. A committee system which disproportionately empowers congressional "lifers" means that spending projects are awarded according to the clout of Capitol Hill patrons rather than merit.

While many Washington insiders doggedly dismiss pork as a minor glitch in the grand scheme of things, few of the taxpayers who foot the bill for the government's fiscal follies dismiss the billions of dollars being wasted as petty larceny. This undoubtedly explains the widespread public support for a balanced budget amendment and presidential line-item veto, two valuable ways to squeeze the fat out of the federal budget.