Don Young Way

Rep. Young is yammering about not getting the $$ for his bridge to nowhere, a bridge that has become symbolic for the pork that is fattening this country's deficit and has morphed the dignified institution of the United States Congress into the contemptuous body of wankers that we see today.

Instead of attacking anti-poverty and education programs, libertarians and fiscal conservatives should be working on cutting the pork out of Congressional bills. Taxes wouldn't seem so evil, nor would they be so high, if more money was spent on healthy, effective social programs rather than pet projects of Congresspeople who care more about votes than the good of this country. The money for that bridge could and should be going to such projects as education reform or health care reform. Or strengthening levees.

Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a huge new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic.

Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing.

What a damnable waste.

Failure to appropriate resources to necessary projects like levee construction are a big reason for the negative perception most Americans have about Congress. Instead, they are misallocating funding for bridges to nowhere, parking garages, salmon paintings on airplanes, and municipal swimming pools. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, "appropriators stuffed 13,997 projects into the 13 appropriations bills, an increase of 31 percent over last year’s total of 10,656" during 2005 for a total of $27.3 billion. (CAGW is a whiny rightwing group who wants to buy more SUVs instead of paying taxes, but they do their homework and are a good source for information about pork.)

If we didn't have such a Congressional culture of misuse, we might be able to build a stronger social fabric, one where giving money to help others in need wasn't viewed with contempt by such a large chunk of the right.