The Great Barbeque

There is a mighty move afoot in the blogosphere to pressure members of Congress to agree to forego porkbarrel federal spending in their states and districts so that the funds can be used for Hurricane Katrina (and, any minute now, Hurricane Rita) relief. As explained by Instapundit:

How are we going to mobilize the blogosphere in support of cuts in wasteful spending to support Katrina relief? Here's the plan.

Identify some wasteful spending in your state or (even better) Congressional District. Put up a blog post on it. Go to N.Z. Bear's new PorkBusters page and list the pork, and add a link to your post.

Then call your Senators and Representative and ask them if they're willing to support having that program cut or -- failing that -- what else they're willing to cut in order to fund Katrina relief. (Be polite, identify yourself as a local blogger and let them know you're going to post the response on your blog). Post the results. Then go back to NZ Bear's page and post a link to your followup blog post.

The result should be a pretty good resource of dubious spending, and Congressional comments thereon, for review by blogs, members of the media, etc. And maybe even members of Congress looking for wasteful spending . . . .

Over at The Truth Laid Bear, proprietor N.Z. Bear has published a list that sets out every member of Congress, alongside a statement of the amount of pork that member has agreed to give up in the name of hurricane relief spending.

This proposal, it seems to me, is hopelessly naive with respect to income as well as outgo.

Let’s talk about income. As currently set up, “PorkBusters” contemplates requesting members of Congress to agree that some federal expenditure that benefits their district is pure porkbarrel spending: without legitimate public benefits in line with its cost, little more than stealing from the Treasury.

Call me crazy, but I think it’s pretty unlikely any Congressman will agree. Not because their district is somehow more important than the victims of Katrina, but because their district simply doesn’t get any such porky cash.

Because “pork” is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Take the now famous “bridge to nowhere” sponsored by Alaska Congressman Don Young, (not incidentally) chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Locals love it, of course, and won’t soon forget their Congressman’s largesse (using my cash, of course).

I share with most critics of this project one important thing: ignorance. I have no idea where this bridge goes to, where it comes from, and whether it makes the slightest bit of sense. For all I know, its construction will lead to an economic Renaissance for Alaska, unearth a cure for the common cold, and cause my doctor to recommend that I take up smoking again.

But I’m nonetheless opposed to this obvious pork, for the only reason that counts: I’ll never use the bridge; I don’t know anyone who will ever use the bridge; I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who will ever use the bridge.

So it’s pork. Obviously. Plain as that nose . . .

On the other hand, I know necessary safety and infrastructure improvements when I see them.

A few years back, for example, a private school here in Washington wished to move to a bigger, better campus on tony Foxhall Road in the District of Columbia. The neighbors, as neighbors will, threw in the way of this plan every possible obstacle that could be conceived and deployed by the chronically overpaid, grossly underemployed, and always angry upper-middle class. All were successfully countered but one: some string-puller in the neighborhood had induced the bureaucrats in the District Government to impose a condition that the road be widened, a left-turn lane constructed, and a traffic light installed. It would cost more than $1,000,000, which was a million dollars more than the school had to spend.

But not to worry: federal transportation funds in just that amount were earmarked for just that project. (It's Project #98 HERE.)

Pork? Not on your life. This was a vital expenditure to protect the safety of our citizens. Money well spent.

And, yes, #2 Son attended the school.

The point is that no member of Congress is going to admit that he has, in effect, stolen from the taxpayers in California to pay off the voters back home in his district in Arkansas. It’s just not going to happen.

Far wiser would have been a program to urge members of Congress to identify important, worthy, long-overdue expenditures that could nevertheless safely be postponed in favor of the more pressing obligations imposed by the hurricane. A matter of priority, not an admission of wrongdoing. Because while it’s easy to accuse a Congressman of being a crook, it's rather another thing to convince him to pay for the rope you need to hang him.

Let’s address outgo. By setting up the movement as has been done, there is implicit approval given to “Katrina relief,” to use Professor Reynolds’ words. A worthy cause. Who is so stone-hearted as to be left unmoved by the piteous plight of helpless victims?

But (not having just ridden into town on a load of turnips) it seems obvious to me that before the first billion dollars is spent on “Katrina relief,” we will be heavily into directing money to friends, supporters and miscellaneous potential voters; expenditures otherwise known as “pork.”

Moreover, before the second billion dollars has been spent on “Katrina relief,” we will have begun to “rebuild New Orleans.”

Now I stand first in line to hand out clothes, shoes, water, food, jobs, school vouchers, gas money and so on to people displaced by Katrina. And I happily support the expenditure of my tax dollars for this sort of aid. But I want no part of rebuilding New Orleans.

If the voters of Louisiana want to foot the bill to rebuild a city below sea level, then good luck and more power to them. Indeed, if The Walt Disney Company wants to undertake the construction of a new theme park,“New Orleans Land,” in return for an equity participation, then Godspeed! (I can hear it now, instead of Tony’s Restaurant from “Lady and the Tramp,” it will be “Hey Schwartz family! Paul Prudhomme has got a table for you!”) (Perhaps Tinkerbell could sprinkle fairy dust on young women willing to flash their breasts.)

But I’ll take a pass on the expenditure of my tax money to rebuild a city that ought never to have been constructed in the first place.

Bottom line: In The Gilded Age, Mark Twain described the world of post-Civil War greed, corruption, speculation and cronyism as “The Great Barbeque.” “Katrina Relief” will result in a pig-fest that will make that era look like a backyard cookout.

I must respectfully dissent.