On November 15,
advocates of a fiscally responsible federal budget thought they had
won an important battle in the war against wasteful spending when
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) announced that he would strike earmarks
for two bridges in Alaska. Slated to receive nearly $500 billion in
taxpayer money, the bridge projects had become symbols of
congressional profligacy and were the subjects of a wave of
national ridicule that undermined Congress's credibility on fiscal
matters. The $315 million bridge connecting the town of Ketchikan
with Gravina Island was popularly dubbed the "Bridge to Nowhere"
when it was reported that only 50 people lived on the island and
that the Governor's family owned land there.
Senator Steven's
amendment struck the earmarks from the law, but it did not cut the
nearly $500 million slated to fund them. Nonetheless, fiscal
conservatives viewed the earmarks' elimination as an important
first win against the increasingly prevalent practice of earmarking
federal spending for specific projects that benefit influential
constituents. The next step should have been to redirect the
funding for the bridges and for all other such earmarked projects
to true national priorities such as hurricane relief. Under the
amended law, however, the money will go to the government of Alaska
to use for transportation projects that meet its own priorities,
not Washington's.
Even that was
wishful thinking. Governor Frank Murkowski released his budget
proposal on December 15, and it includes funding for the two
bridges that a month earlier the state's senior senator had
purported to eliminate. To be sure, devolving decision-making to
state and local governments is important because it allows those
closest to the issues to set priorities, but there is no guarantee
either that the states will exhibit especially great wisdom or, as
may be the case here, independence from Washington meddling. In
this case, the governor has elected to burden his state's budget
and federal taxpayers with the $915 million that the two bridges
are expected to cost.
It is certain that
these projects are a waste of federal taxpayers' money, but perhaps
even more damaging is the appearance of insincerity and cynicism
that this episode exposes. The public has grown increasingly
skeptical about the integrity of the legislative process, and the
appearance of a bait-and-switch on the bridges will not help
Congress to restore its credibility. All in all, what looked to be
a good first step towards responsible fiscal policy turned out to
be much less than promised.
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.