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The Pork-Barrel Files
Michigan’s in an economic funk. Manufacturing jobs are leaving, and unemployment is at 7.6%, the highest in the nation. Actually, the state’s been in a funk since 2003, when Governor Jennifer Granholm asked citizens to “give us five years” to fix the state’s economic problems, and “you’ll be blown away.”
Do you think she meant it in the other sense?
While it’s naïve to think that a government is directly responsible for reducing unemployment or commerce, Governor Granholm and the state legislature are responsible for creating a suitable business climate. In the 2007 report “Rich States, Poor States,” economists Arthur B. Laffer and Stephen Moore rank Michigan:
-28th in corporate taxation
-43rd in net migration
-34th in recent tax increases
-38th in minimum wage rates.
On top of all that, unions’ long dominance of Michigan’s heavy industry means that it’s not a right-to-work state. So firms must compete with or succumb to inflated union wages, and workers have to contend with union dues and the high natural unemployment that accompanies a unionized work force.
All these ingredients form a fine recipe for commercial malaise, and only more economic freedom can fix the problem. Michigan legislators need to remember that far-off outsourcing is not the only difficulty to worry about. With state rankings as rank as this, business can find a better area to sell and produce just a state away.
How does your state rank? Read this great report here.
Highway to… Deficit Spending
Mike Huckabee is still in the race for the Republican nomination. But political perseverance doesn’t require economic knowledge.
At the Republican debate on January 24, Governor Huckabee proposed a novel and ambitious alternative to the usual economic stimulus package:
“If we're going to spend $150 billion, I'd like to suggest that maybe we add two lanes of highway from Bangor all the way to Miami on I-95… when we were going through a recession in my state, we were in the middle of a billion-dollar highway construction program that brought about 40,000 jobs and brought a billion dollars of capital into the economy.”
Huckabee has clearly forgotten his “Economics 101”—but then, he himself recently said “I didn’t major in math. I majored in miracles.” On its face, a few tens of billions of dollars injected into a whole seaboard of state economies may seem like a good idea. But where do those billions come from?
Since the government (presumably) will pay, the money must come from taxes or bonds.
Taxes would be just another way of redistributing wealth; bonds would require American money, or, more likely, foreign investment to purchase Huckabee’s “American steel and American concrete.” There are long, theoretical economic equations that disprove New Deal policies like this one. But most importantly, the numbers show they’ve never really worked.
Huckabee’s plan is just another example of political convenience crowding out economic reality.
Here’s the poll you never wanted to take. Citizens Against Government Waste want to determine who was the worst steward of taxpayer funds in 2007—and you can help decide!
You have your pick between a number of worthy (or unworthy, really) candidates, all of whom were among the CAGW’s Porkers of the Month throughout 2007. Will it be Rep. John “Jack” Murtha (D-Pa.) “for throwing a temper tantrum and threatening his colleagues over a challenge to a $23 million pet project he inserted into the Fiscal 2008 Intelligence Authorization Act and for purposefully putting up roadblocks and barriers to hinder earmark accountability and reform”?
Or how about Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) for pushing an $11 million earmark for his alma mater, the
You pick. Click here to see the rest of the contestants, and to vote.
And by “Merry Christmas,” they meant, “Have fun paying billions for all of our pet projects.”
While most Americans were celebrating the holidays with their family and friends, Congress was pushing through a last-minute, end-of-the-year, 3,417-page, 34-pound spending bill full of corruption and waste.
More than 300 of the 9,170 pork-barrel projects included in the bill had never been made public—nor passed by either house.
We have a lot of work to do in 2008—won’t you join us?
From CNSnews.com comes a unique way to spend the holiday, touring some of your government’s more ludicrous ways to spend your money.
I got better ways to spend my winter break. But I guess that’s the point.
To help you plan your tour, The Heritage Foundation sent out an email listing some of the 11,300 "exciting pork barrel projects tucked away in the House and Senate spending bills."
My personal favorite on the list is the $500,000 being spent on “longer streets in Champaign, Ill,” because I happen to go to school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
I’ve been there three and a half years now, never having a problem with the streets being too short. What does “longer streets” even mean? Have streets been ending at random points in the middle of no where? Wouldn’t I have found out about this sooner?
I wrote earlier today about the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, sponsored in part by Tom Coburn. This is great work—but it’s only one part of Coburn’s efforts to make the government more accountable and transparent.
In a Politico piece about Coburn published earlier this week, I learned about how he’s crusading against wasteful government spending and rampant use of earmarks—and if he has a problem with a bill, he’ll kill it. He currently has holds on 95 Congressional bills for a number of different reasons.
Of course, many Senators have less-than-friendly feelings about this “fly-in-the-soup” persona Coburn has taken on, but Coburn is more concerned with changing the culture of the Senate than a popularity contest. Even so, he has gained at least 25 allies in his pursuit of a more responsible government. At any rate, it’s nice to know there are a lonely few legislators we can trust to act in the best interest of American taxpayers.
I’ve written about the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association before, and today I ran across a great op-ed, written by Jon Coupal, the group’s president.
The piece ran in the
Here’s an excerpt:
“People ask why we bother to fight government waste and the misuse of taxpayer dollars. It seems that the triple threat of out-of-control government spending, tax increases and government debt—in all its myriad forms—are so daunting that it is scarcely worth the effort.
“In many ways, our work is like fighting an invasion of ants in the kitchen. With diligence, you can kill hundreds of them, yet hundreds still remain. You battle the ants knowing that you won't destroy all the ants in one fell swoop, but every one you get reduces the threat to your health and food supply.
“The same basic principle holds true as we jointly released our fifth annual California Piglet Book last week. This 35-page booklet carefully scrutinizes dozens of examples of waste, fraud, and abuse that occurred in
Read the whole thing here.
I wrote a while back about my suspicions of a secret toolkit for politicians—you know, something that helps elected officials abuse voters and taxpayers.
Well, here’s the latest entry: “How to Spend $3 Million of Taxpayer Money on Nothing.” Check it out here.
Happy Halloween from the Sam Adams
In the spirit of today’s holiday, I’m posting a press release from Citizens Against Government Waste, detailing a list of those who deserve taxpayer tricks and treats. Here’s a sample:
Trick: To the vampiric Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) for purposefully putting up roadblocks and barriers to hinder earmark accountability and reform. Jack-the-Ripper-Offer’s response to a reporter’s inquiry regarding the difficulty of matching up earmark information in appropriations bills was: “So, you have to work. Tough [expletive].” Rep. Murtha was named CAGW’s May Porker of the Month for howling like a werewolf, throwing a temper tantrum, and threatening his colleagues over a challenge to a $23 million earmark for his pet project, the
Treat: To Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R) for announcing the state would drive a stake through the heart of the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” and focus on other transportation priorities. Gov. Palin directed the Alaska Department of Transportation (DOT) to create a list of other uses for the $36 million in federal money that will be freed up with the desertion of the project. The DOT will also work to come up with a more financially responsible solution, such as improved ferry services, to serve the residents of
Read the whole list here.
There are just so many ways to spend our money, and Congress, lately, has been looking for new ones. No surprise, then, when we hear of Senate tempers flaring on that pressing issue: the proposed Woodstock museum for Upstate New York.
Yes, yesterday brought fresh excitement to the Senate floor as the museum's $1 million of federal funding was actually voted down. Yes, that's right. Too bad the funds were just shifted elsewhere. But that's another story.
Read all about the debacle here at Politico. Emotional stuff.
Of his colleagues' audacity in withholding the funding, New York's Senator Schumer seemed very upset, saying - "If you believe in helping counties, if you believe that every one of us wants the federal government to not just pass broad-brush programs, but to help individual needs in our states... this is the project."
Goodness, Mr. Schumer. This is the project? Not just any project, folks. This is the project.
"Maybe this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius for taxpayers," said Oklahoma Senator Ted Coburn in voting it all down.
The Age of Aquarius. Oh, if only.
Last week, we posted a Sam Adams Alliance Quarterly exclusive—“Where’s the Party?”—by Paul Jacob. (If you haven’t already, sign-up for a MySam account to read it.)
Then today, I read a great piece in National Review Online that strikes a similar chord. It’s written by Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth.
In the piece, entitled “When Will They Learn?,” Toomey addresses some “taxpayer-funded travesties” approved by Congress—and how Republicans have failed to take action on all their talk about fiscal responsibility.
“It is easy for conservatives to attack Democrats like Harry Reid and Robert Byrd for baseball field slush funds, and they certainly deserve a hefty dose of criticism. But it is time for conservatives to take a long and hard look at their own party and leaders, and ask why it is always the same ten to twenty guys willing to put their necks on the line while the rest of the bunch follows Ted Stevens over the cliff like lemmings to their death.”
It’s a great piece—read the whole thing here.
Congressman Jeff Flake is doing so much good these days in the Congress. Check out this video that pits Congressman Henry Waxman (who wants the government to teach values to children, and the taxpayers to pay for it) against Flake who says that the government shouldn't fund every little museum out there.
Hat tip- the Club for Growth blog
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For months now, the Illinois General Assembly and Governor Rod Blagojevich have been feuding over the state’s budget. Today, more than a month after the deadline to approve the budget passed, the House of Representatives finally voted for a bill.
Something is truly rotten in the state of
Apparently the adage that "everything's bigger in Texas" applies to the state's budget as well. Speaker Tom Craddick, desperate to cling to power after a bipartisan effort to remove him from his post, has rewarded his allies in the Texas House of Representatives with millions of taxpayer dollars for various pet projects. The total? An estimated $176 million.
Among the most egregious examples of pork included in the budget is a $600,000 grant for renovations to a local park. The money was requested by Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Democrat who helped the Republican speaker remain in power. The park's name - Sylvester Turner Park.
Lawmakers had planned to set aside $4 billion of the budget's $14 billion surplus for future property tax relief. But thanks in large part to the Speaker's generosity to his political friends, this has now been reduced to $2.5 billion. Craddick gets to keep his job, but millions of Texans now have to pay the price.
Americans for Prosperity’s “Mystery Pork Tour” has made a stop nearby, and MyFoxChicago has the scoop. Click here to take action and tell
Do you remember the TV show Supermarket Sweep, where contestants would race around supermarkets, filling up their carts as fast as they could, and whoever tallied up the highest tab in the shortest amount of time won?
Well, sometimes, politicians remind me of those contestants. When renovating the Illinois Statehouse, the proud "shoppers" purchased a $38,000 clock, $405 door knobs, $40,000 desks, and $905 urinals.
But wait! There's still competition for who can spend them most in Illinois! Governor Blagojevich spent $480,000 of the taxpayer dime to fill tollways with signs bearing his name. These are essentially advertisements for himself that citizens are paying for.
Who will win?
Certainly not the taxpayers.I don’t know about you, but I just don’t see how $198,000 for the Akron Zoological Park and $248,000 for the Alaska Sealife Center count as educational spending. Nevertheless, these were among the special projects that received money from education funds in fiscal 2005.
The Heritage Foundation finds this just as crazy as I do, and they ask an important question: if American education is in such peril, why are we sending hundreds of thousands of dollars of education funds for special interest pet projects?
Read more here.
When you think of Washington the state, what comes to mind? Thick forests filled with evergreen trees? The Space Needle? Microsoft? NASCAR?
Wait...NASCAR?
Well, if some state officials have their way, $500 million of taxpayer dough will be spent on a race track and a basketball arena. Check out the Heartland Institute's Budget and Tax News for the whole story.
The Washington Examiner reported on Tuesday that the Senate’s emergency war bill will include $20 billion in pork, $100 million of which will go toward the Democratic and Republican 2008 presidential conventions.
This party pork—$50 million for each party’s convention—was listed under a section “described as ‘Katrina recovery, veterans’ care and for other purposes.’” Anyone care to venture a guess as to which category booze and balloons fall under?
The 2007 Congressional Pig Book is here! To see how your tax dollars are being wasted, er, spent, click here to see Citizens Against Government Waste’s compilation of pork barrel projects in the federal budget for fiscal 2007 (and past years).
Yes, it’s March Madness, and we at the Sam Adams Alliance already have a bracket making the rounds.
As John Fund points out, however, there’s another form of March Madness—taxpayer-funded lobbying. Learn how your tax dollars are being used against you here.
