Early reports of
the extraordinary devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina on the
city of New Orleans and scores of towns on the nearby Gulf Coast of
Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida indicate a disaster of epic
proportions that will impact the lives of hundreds of thousands for
months, if not years. Homes have been destroyed, public
infrastructure wrecked, businesses closed, and thousands of
hard-working, modest-income people-many already living paycheck to
paycheck-are now out of work and will soon confront the great costs
of rebuilding their lives. Private citizens across the country have
chosen to make personal sacrifices to help these people in need.
Publicly spirited Members of Congress should join their
constituents and make a sacrifice of their own-take some of the
funding doled out in the recent highway bill to low-priority
earmarked projects and redirect it to rebuild the infrastructure
devastated by Katrina.
The outpouring of
support for the victims of Katrina has been extraordinary. As the
residents of New Orleans face lingering flooding that could keep
them away for months, millions of Americans are coming forward to
help them put their lives back together. From a relief drive
organized by a Girl Scout Troop in San Jacinto, Texas, to the
mighty Salvation Army, whose 100 mobile canteens with the combined
capacity of serving 500,000 meals per day are headed south,
ordinary Americans across the country are rallying to the cause and
digging into their wallets and purses to fund a voluntary relief
effort whose dimensions the world has rarely seen.
American business,
too, is gearing up for the relief effort. Wal-Mart, BP, and Abbot
are just a few of the companies that have promised a million
dollars or more apiece. Popular entertainers are digging deep into
their pockets. Sean "Diddy" Combs, Jay-Z, and Celine Dion are among
the first to donate a million dollars apiece. Lesser-known
entertainers are getting into the act; for example, the owners of a
minor league baseball team in Prince William County, Virginia, will
donate half the gate of a weekend game to flood relief. Other
nations, too, are helping out, and one of the first offers of cash
assistance came from the Red Cross Society of China.
At last count,
voluntary financial contributions to the relief effort totaled more
than $100 million.
As Americans lock
arms, open their wallets, and head south to the Mississippi Delta
to give what aid and comfort they can-much as they did after the
9/11 attacks on New York and Arlington-there is a lesson in this
response that the U.S. Congress should consider as it convenes in
an emergency session to pass a much-needed relief package for the
victims and their damaged towns. Are members of Congress prepared
to be as generous with their "own" resources as they are with the
taxes of their constituents, who have already written checks to the
institutions now helping the beleaguered citizens of the Gulf
Coast?
If Congress
follows its usual pattern, there will be much debate about how much
money to send and where to send it, and in the end an initial
package totaling some tens of billions of dollars will be passed
and signed into the law. But these are extraordinary times, and
Congress must rise above the "usual pattern" and show the American
people that they too can be just as generous in their own personal
sacrifice as their constituents.
One way to show
such sacrifice and resolve would be to agree to shift at least half
of the $25 billion dollars that the recently enacted highway bill
(SAFETEA-LU) dedicates to frivolous pork barrel spending in local
communities around the nation. As Mississippi and Louisiana
confront the replacement of dozens of wrecked bridges, is it
possible that Rep. Don Young (R-AK) could give up one of the two
$200 million dollar bridges he secured for his state? Perhaps
Alaskans could go without the one that will serve a town of just
fifty people, who now ride a ferry? Such an example of leadership
and sacrifice by a senior Member like Rep. Young could persuade the
rest of the Congress to follow his lead and give up there own
wasteful earmarks and pork until the $12 or $13 billion dollars is
redirected to those whose need is dire.
As was widely
reported following the passage of SAFETEA-LU, the bill contained
more than 6,000 earmarks. Many of these became objects of national
ridicule, thanks to the national media, and rightly so because they
had little to do with building necessary transportation
infrastructure. But today, in the face of Katrina's vast
destruction, these earmarks are no laughing matter when their
funding could be redirected to begin to rebuild the infrastructure
of the Gulf States. As Congress considers the vast suffering in
Louisiana, is it possible that Richmond, Indiana, could give up its
$3 million dollar hiking trail? Could Newark, New Jersey pass on
its $2 million earmark for Waterfront Pedestrian and Bicycle
Access? And can Hoboken, New Jersey, do likewise with the $8
million planned for its Waterfront Walkway? What about the $3
million that Modesto, California, expects to get for its Rails to
Trails program, the $5 million Bridgeport, Connecticut, grabbed for
an Intermodal Transportation facility, the $5 million Delaware will
get to improve the Auto Tour Route at the Bombay Hook Wildlife
Refuge, and the $6.5 million that state will receive for the
Wilmington Train Station Restoration? In the face of genuine need,
don't these expensive projects seem comparatively frivolous?
The earmarks go on
and on like this, page after page in SAFETEA-LU. The more than
6,000 earmarks in it add up to nearly $25 billion in money that
could now be better used for a more urgent purpose than flower
gardens, replica sailing ships, and bus museums. Members of
Congress may want these projects, but Katrina's victims need the
funding more.
The next time you
walk the streets of New York City, keep an eye out for police cars,
and when you see one, take a minute to see if there is an
inscription on its side. If that car was provide to the NYPD by the
citizens of a town in America, as many were after 9/11, that town
will be named on it by the thankful citizens of the Big Apple. If
Congress puts the nation's transportation earmarks to better use,
years from now the people of the Big Easy may drive across a new
bridge bearing a bronze plaque: "Proudly Provided by the People of
Alaska."
Ronald D. Utt,
Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow
in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The
Heritage Foundation.