Our
View: The barrel has more than pork
Every
year around this time, as Congress wrangles
with the government's budget for the upcoming
fiscal year, politicians and pundits alike
decry a seemingly pork-laden plan. Their
frustration and anger is not unfounded.
Self-interested senators and representatives,
ostensibly seeking to impress their constituents
and curry their future votes, often maneuver
to implant the annual omnibus spending bill
with pet projects.
Often
the accusations leveled against these officials
are merited. This year's budget, as always,
is chock full of the other white meat. To
wit:
•
$2 million for I-Safe America, a program
designed to "provide Internet safety
information and knowledge to students, parents
and everyone in the community," according
to the program's Web site.
If
any parent is too uniformed to know that
pornography is easily accessible on the
Internet and that parental controls are
readily available, then we'd be surprised
if they or their children even know how
to turn on a computer. It's not the duty
of taxpayers to pay $2 million to state
the obvious.
•
"Tools for Tolerance," a series
of seminars at the Los Angeles Museum of
Tolerance designed to educate students,
police officers and corporate and government
officials, receives $2 million in support.
Our education system and much of the world's
art has been redirected in recent years
toward the promotion of tolerance. Furthermore,
this is another area that should be the
responsibility of parents..
•
Other porky projects include $5 million
to build a bike path at the Kennedy Center
on the Potomac River; $800,000 for the purchase
of buses at Mammoth Lakes; $325,000 for
the construction of a swimming pool in Salinas,
Calif.; and $225,000 for a Hawaiian 55th
anniversary statehood celebration.
But
these programs are miniscule elements of
a discretionary spending plan that totals
some $11 billion, much of which is worthwhile
spending. Numerous reputable think tanks,
including the Heritage Foundation and the
National Center for Policy Analysis, have
unfortunately found it necessary to list
all of these programs under one pork label.
Some of these positive programs, which the
aforementioned organizations unfairly deride
as wasteful, include:
•
$6 million for the Police Athletic League,
an operation that involves 2 million youths
age 5-18 nationwide and uses sports and
education to discourage drug and gang activities.
At a cost of only $3 per child, it is a
valid expense.
•
$1 million for the WestStart Vehicular Flywheel
Project, the purpose of which is to develop
flywheel energy storage capabilities for
hybrid vehicles. Research and development
is the reason the United States is the most
technologically advanced nation in the world.
Spending $1 million to support that position
as well as an environmentally beneficial
cause is a great deal.
•
Programs for the homeless operated by the
Doe Fund and Martha's Village will receive
$750,000 and $250,000 respectively. Each
group has a long record of service to the
needy and each receives the vast majority
of its funding from private contributions.
This
brief list is intended to remind people
that social ills don't solve themselves
and that the government has a clear responsibility
to assist the betterment of society. People
cannot on the one hand clamor for a heightened
offensive against drugs and gangs, a reduced
reliance on foreign sources of energy and
a reasonable social welfare system and at
the same time tag all discretionary spending
as pork.
Their
efforts would be better spent targeting
the corporate giveaways that constitute
a great deal of the recently passed Medicare
reform bill and the soon-to-be-resuscitated
energy bill.
The
$400 billion Medicare Bill does little to
help seniors better afford prescription
drugs. It does not allow purchases in bulk
or from Canada, where medicine can be bought
for as little as one-third the cost. Seniors
are forced to pay for all expenses that
fall between $2,000 and $4,500, in addition
to continuing co-pays and deductibles.
Various
HMOs will receive $14 billion subsidies
and the Hospital Corporation of America,
the subject of the largest fraud settlement
in U.S. history, will get $26.6 billion.
The
profits that the pharmaceutical industry
stands to reap are manifested by the fact
that it sponsored a $4.5 million advertising
campaign urging passage of the bill.
The
$80 billion energy bill provides $23 billion
in energy industry subsidies and includes
provisions for an environmentally-friendly
Hooters restaurant and Bass Pro shop in
Louisiana -- now that's pork!
It
also gives $800 million to a Minnesota coal-gasification
plant. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn, was quoted
by The Washington Post as saying, "
It would be very hard to walk away from
an energy bill [with those provisions] no
matter what else was in it." This comment
that can only be construed as bald-faced
home-state nepotism.
Finally,
the corrupt ties among politicians and energy
industry officials are shown in the fact
that the top ten recipients of its campaign
contributions are all Republicans.
The
media and various intellectual organizations
play a vital role as government watchdogs.
But they should focus their energies on
truly wasteful spending and take care to
avoid the inaccurate and unfair alarmist
rhetoric that damages the integrity of reputable
and important social programs.
|
