Pork-barrel
spending cuts into war dollars
Each
dollar spent on pork-barrel projects is one less dollar that can be
devoted to the War on Terror. This inescapable fact somehow has
escaped members of Congress. While senators and representatives
swiftly and wisely approved $40 billion in recovery and defense
funds after the Sept. 11 massacre, they quickly relapsed into old
habits.
Congress again is spending money as recklessly and foolishly
as it did on Sept. 10.
Even as
U.S. warships steam toward the Persian Gulf, Citizens Against
Government Waste, a Washington-based fiscal watchdog group, has
calculated in military terms the opportunity cost of business as
usual.
Sidewinder missiles sell for $41,300 each, CAGW reports.
Tomahawk Cruise missiles are $1 million apiece while one F-15
fighter jet costs $15 million. Pork projects chew right through cash
that could purchase these and other weapons the Pentagon will need
to crush the international terror network and its state sponsors.
For
instance, on Sept. 13, the Senate adopted the fiscal 2002 Commerce,
Justice, State and Judiciary Appropriations Bill. Consider just
several items the Senate approved while the Pentagon and Ground Zero
still smoldered:
-- $2
million for the Oregon Groundfish Outreach Program and $850,000 for
Chesapeake Bay Oyster Research. Cost: 69 Sidewinders.
-- $6
million for the National Infrastructure Institute in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire.
Cost: Six Cruise missiles.
-- $204
million for the Advanced Technology Program, a quintessential
corporate welfare boondoggle, for which the Bush administration
requested only $13 million.
Cost: Thirteen F-15 fighters.
Even
more maddening is a brand-new bill to expand farm subsidies one year
before the existing spending plan expires. The Farm Security Act
would increase agricultural pork by $73.1 billion over the next 10
years. Added to the $96.9 billion budget baseline, Uncle Sam would
plow $170 billion into the ground through 2011.
House
Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest, R-Texas, distributed a
Sept. 27 "Dear Colleague" letter that promotes this extravagance in
stunningly selfish terms. "What's in it for me?" the note asks in
bold letters. "The 2001 Farm Bill: From Buffalo, Kansas to Buffalo,
New York, there is something for everyone."
Indeed,
there is. This bill authorizes $101 million for honey producers. The
once-terminated wool and mohair program rises again, $202 million
strong. Peanut farmers can expect $3.48 billion. This bill also
would revive $37.1 billion in "counter-cyclical assistance" which
was scrapped in 1996.
The
U.S. Agriculture Department released a study last month that
describes these subsidies as spectacularly wasteful and
fundamentally unfair. Forty-seven percent of agricultural payments
go to commercial farms with average household incomes of $135,397,
more than two and a half 2 1/2 times the average American
household's $51,855 in earnings.
According to the Associated Press, just 10 percent of farm
owners shared 63 percent of last year's $27 billion in federal
agriculture payments.
Media
tycoon Ted Turner received farm aid, as did Portland Trail Blazer
Scottie Pippen. Modestly paid waitresses and school bus drivers pay
twice for such largesse -- first through taxes, then again as
agricultural price supports hike their grocery bills.
This
situation has enraged Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. "It's inconceivable
that this might be on the House floor next week in the middle of a
war" the Senate Agriculture Committee's ranking Republican said.
He also
rejected the notion that passing a farm bill would guarantee
civilian and military food security. "Let's come off of it," Lugar
demanded. "To imply somehow we need a farm bill in order to feed our
troops, to defend our nation, is ridiculous . . . We are producing
so much, it is coming up around our ears."
These
legislative hijinks are bad enough in peacetime. America is at war.
Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are kissing their loved ones
goodbye and shipping out to face a vicious and bloodthirsty enemy
lurking in foreign shadows. Right now, Congress should grow up and
stop treating the domestic budget as a political Toys R Us.
Americans already are making huge sacrifices. Weak tourist revenues
have lowered the curtains on five Broadway shows. Hotel beds have
gone empty as conferences have been canceled, and weddings have been
scaled back or postponed. Major U.S. airlines have fired 87,000
employees since terror struck.
Amid
such national belt-tightening, it is beyond ugly to watch public
servants loosen their belts as their pork-laden bellies swell. If
the American people must live with less, so must their
representatives.
Deroy Murdock is a columnist for Scripps
Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic
Research Foundation in Fairfax, Va.