Back in September, Instapundit and Truth Liad Bear put together a movement to try and secure reductions in Congressional pork projects to pay for the massive costs of Federal Aid for rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.
Unexpectedly, freshman celebrity Sen. Barack Obama, in this op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, seems to be embracing the concept.
It's time for a return to responsibility in the budget process.
I know there are Democrats who don't want to give up spending, Republicans who don't want to give up any tax breaks for the wealthy and members of both parties who don't want to give up pet projects back home, but now is a time for shared sacrifice. Americans want members of both parties to put all options on the table to start solving this problem.
I believe that we can quickly find $100 billion for Gulf Coast reconstruction with a balanced approach that finds half the money in spending cuts and half the money in the delay and repeal of tax breaks, primarily for millionaires.
To cut $50 billion in spending, we could put a two-year moratorium on all pet projects and other local spending. We could defer projects such as the $10 billion mission to Mars or eliminate unnecessary business subsidies.
We could drop funding that gives private companies extra incentives to participate in the new Medicare drug program--as the Senate already has agreed to do, though the White House has refused thus far.
We could save Medicaid money by increasing the rebates that brand-name drug manufacturers owe the program.
Rather than this measured approach, some in Congress have advocated indiscriminate across-the-board cuts. This is an irresponsible approach.
In their own budgets, Americans don't cut back on essentials such as food, heating and health care before first forgoing luxuries, and Congress shouldn't either.
Others intent on cutting spending have pointed to Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" as a wasteful project. I agree and believe that it represents the first type of project we should cut. But it's wrong to single out one state's pork project. If we're serious about shared responsibility, let's eliminate all pork projects in all states.
While I think he spends too much effort promoting tax increases, at least he's advocating serious spending cuts, too. Kudos to Sen. Obama, and let's hope that other legislators in Illinois will follow suit.
(Oh, and for the record: I support the Fiscal Watch Team Offset Package. Let's see if the Ecosystem scans can pick that up.)
But I want the pork busting to start in Louisiana. I do not want decent road projects and other valuable projects from our area to be hijacked by Katrina and the politicians down there.
We shouldn't just be throwing money at them. Congress needs to scrutinize the spending and pay as they go. Louisiana must have to justify the costs of everything.
Because of what we are finding out regarding the real reason why the levees broke (inferior construction due to local graft and corruption) Congress has already said there will be oversight at every level regarding where the money goes. There will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over this down there, but it has to be done because the officials in LA have shown over the last 30 years (maybe as far back as Huey Long) they can't be trusted.
What tax increases has he spent too much time promoting? Just asking.
The easiest way to slow down pork spending is to up the local/state matching percentage. In other words, highway projects might become 50/50 instead of 80% fed and 20% local, or restrict the more desireable matching fund rates to low income regions. There's already far more requests than Congress can fund, so why not discourage the pork requests?
I'm glad to see that Obama is among the voices of reason on this issue. I can't begin to fathom the irresponsibility of this Congress. Unrestrained spending on war, pork, Gulf Coast reconstruction and unfundable fantasies like the Prescription Drug Benefit, combined with massive tax breaks mostly favoring upper-income Americans--the first tax cuts during wartime in the history of the nation, in the face of a record national debt. What, tax-and-spend got politically intractable, so we decided to go with borrow-and-spend instead? These guys are like college kids with their first credit cards, except with no credit limit and without Mom & Dad to slap 'em around when the bills show up.
One word you'll never hear in Washington these days is "sacrifice." Politicians of all stripes won't sacrifice their pork. The rich won't sacrifice their tax breaks. Industry won't sacrifice their subsidies. Entitlement recipients won't sacrifice their programs. Rather than using the budget crisis to fix the budget, the GOP is using it as a sham excuse to cut programs they don't like, while keeping the Washington Pork Festival in full swing. Anyone who tries to cross the aisle to work with the other party is "giving comfort to the enemy." The Federal government is out of control, and rather than reduced spending and qualified individuals who can figure out how to do more with less, we've gotten an entire new Cabinet-level bureaucracy (DHS) staffed with incompetent cronies. War used to mean unity, rationing, sacrifice, tax increases, program cuts, infrastructure projects deferred or scrapped, and public servants putting aside partisanship to solve problems. Now it means ever-increasing pork, tax cuts, more bureaucracy, no-bid contracts, bribery, crony capitalism, partisan whining and backstabbing, and record-low satisfaction among the populace for the direction in which the nation is going.
That's a lot of damage to try to heal, but putting our so-called leaders (of both parties) on notice that we expect fiscal responsibility is a good start. We literally can't afford more "business as usual."
What tax increases has he spent too much time promoting? Just asking.
The tax increases that he's talking about in his op-ed. "Eliminating tax cuts," by the way, means the same thing as increasing taxes - that's just how those on the left like to frame the debate.
Incidentally, I also agree with the previous posters.
The historical pattern of laundering most infrastructure spending through the Federal government should be reversed, with states taking more responsibility for funding their own projects (and keeping more tax money closer to home). Otherwise we're going to see more "Big Dig" and "Bridge to Nowhere" projects brokered in back-room deals among a handful of corrupt legislators. The century-old money conveyor from the wealthier states to the South needs to stop. In the context of minimum federal standards for highways, airports, etc., states should have more influence over much of their money gets spent on infrastructure. The trucking industry and the airlines won't like it, but I'm sure the states can come up with a way to allow them to pay for the resources they consume if they really want to. The more Federal corporate welfare and pork we can eliminate, the better.
Katrina reconstruction should be a priority, but scrutiny of contracts, especially in light of historical experience in Louisiana and recent experience in Iraq, is critical. I read recently about a local janitorial firm in New Orleans that has been unable to even get anyone at the federal level to talk to them about participating in the cleanup effort; meanwhile the contracts are going to politically-connected firms from out of state. Likewise with a contract to purchase portable classrooms which went to an Alaska firm with connections to former Homeland Security officials at almost twice the price offered by a Mississippi contractor. What now seems to be called "influence" and "lobbying" needs to be called what it is: racketeering and bribery, and corporate and government officials who are involved need to pay crippling fines and serve long prison terms. To the greatest extent possible we should try to recover the costs of Katrina reconstruction through long-term loans rather than grants.
Lazlo, we agree again! Let's get rid of federal grants for bike paths, public transportation, green space set-asides, airports - local projects should be paid for with local money. If you take away the power of Congress to give away all this money, the lobbying issue goes away. The CUMTD would have to pay their lobbyist to try to convince the local city councils to help them come up with the $200 million.
This GOP Congress has been an embarrassment to fiscal responsibility. I don't believe that the Democrats would be any better on the spending side - they would just raise a bunch of taxes - but a lot of conservatives have been very disappointed. A few vetos from GW early may have helped, but we are way passed that now.
This is anon from 12:59.
Fair enough. I disagree with that assessment but I figured that's what you were talking about.
He sounds good but let's just see if he'll listen to what he just said.
Lazlo,
I wish more people campaigned and governed on the common sense you espoused in those posts.
If Alaska wants a bridge to nowhere they can implement a state income tax to pay for it.
"Let's get rid of federal grants for bike paths, public transportation, green space set-asides, airports - local projects should be paid for with local money."
Redstate, why stop there? Why not eliminate or at least reduce the federal matching funds on all projects? Why not drop the federal gas tax and let states decide if they want their own gas tax to fund pork?
More realistically, I'd prefer to start cutting the subsidy by gradually reducing it from 80 percent by 5 percent every year until it's down to 25 percent.
Sounds like the rebirth of federalism to me - where do I sign?
And, actually, with all the moveon.org stuff about the rich blue states subsidizing the poor red states, you could probably even get the Democrats to sign off also.
Now how do we get Tim Johnson to agree to let go of all that power (to buy votes)?
I'm all in favor of bagging the federal gas tax, but the alternative can't be state gas taxes because it's too easy to cross state lines to fill up. That's a problem with state taxes in general. Use taxes (tolls, where roads are concerned) are a lot better because you can get the money for a given resource out of the people who use it. Fuel taxes aren't a good way of paying for roads anyway--heavy trucks do almost all of the damage to the infrastructure but pay a negligible share of the fuel tax. With things like open road toll collection and I-PASS, the technology is getting good enough and cheap enough that we might eventually be able to get everyone to pay their share. The current tax structure is such that trucking is heavily taxpayer-funded--there's little incentive for shippers to look at more efficient approaches such as buying materials closer to home or more efficient private-sector modes like rail.