The Senate ponders even more spending
April 18, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
A private company just spent $250 million to repair these train tracks after Hurricane Katrina. Now the Senate wants to use $700 million in "hurricane relief" money to rip them up.
What’s gotten into the Senate?
Earlier this year, the Senate demolished a spending-cuts bill, so that in the end Congress blocked only $39 billion in spending hikes over five years. Then the Senate added $16 billion to the President’s budget request for 2007. And now, members of the world’s greatest deliberative body are proposing an additional $106.5 billion in emergency spending on Iraq, Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina relief—$14 billion more than the President requested.
But it’s not the important spending on Iraq and Afghanistan or hurricane relief that’s raising eyebrows. It’s the waste.
This new emergency spending bill comes, as Heritage’s Brian Riedl and Alison Fraser tell us, after a five-year spending spree during which the federal budget grew by 45 percent to a post-war record of $23,760 per household. “The Senate’s actions show a clear disregard for this huge fiscal burden Americans already face,” they write, noting the looming entitlement crisis that will cost $375,000 per worker.
Riedl, the Grover Hermann Fellow in federal budgetary affairs, and Fraser outline some of the absurdities in the bill. Remember, this bill is for hurricane relief and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- $700 million to destroy a recently-rebuilt freight railroad in Mississippi and replace it with a light rail line. The railroad’s owner would be forced to relocate the track several miles away, reportedly to help private developers build casinos near the track’s present location
- $594 million for highway projects unrelated to the Gulf Coast—some as far away as Hawaii
- 156 pork projects diverted from last year’s appropriations bills, including grants for air shows in Las Vegas, arts promotion in the Bronx, and a courthouse in West Virginia
- $1.1 billion for private fisheries
- $2.3 billion to prepare for the avian flu, on top of the $3.8 billion that was appropriated in December 2005
- $4 billion for farm bailouts, which comes on top of the $25 billion that will be spent this year on farm subsidies, even as farm income reaches near-record highs
This baffling new round of spending is already drawing the ire of conservatives in Washington, who have labeled the Mississippi railroad project “the railroad to nowhere.” Some Senators are also questioning the waste, like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). “There’s nothing wrong with this if Mississippi wants to do it. Mississippi wanted to do it before the hurricane,” Sen. Coburn told The Washington Post. “But why is it a federal responsibility? Why should our grandchildren pay for it?”
Heritage’s Andrew Grossman adds: “attaching this thing to a must-pass bill that funds the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and real emergency needs along the Gulf Coast is just cynical and irresponsible. Congress should reject this ploy, and if not, the President should veto it.”
The Senate’s blank check to international organizations
The Senate is also considering a bill to forgive the debt of the world’s poorest countries and pay international organizations the balance of these debts. The law would reward corrupt dictators and support the poor lending practices of organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, writes Heritage’s Ana Eiras. Worse, she continues, the bill is “an insulting waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars and certainly not a wise choice at a time when America needs to cut government expenditures.”
“Almost everyone would argue that people living in extreme poverty need help,” Eiras writes. “The question is whether forgiving the debt and continuing to lend to poor countries will do anything at all to foster the growth and prosperity that would lift them out of poverty.”
Instead, the government should forgive the debt, which will almost certainly never be repaid in any case, and hold international financial institutions accountable for their future loans.
In other news
- Entrepreneurship is on the rise, especially among minorities, according to the Census Bureau. A new survey reports that the number of black-owned businesses increased 45 percent between 1997 and 2002, while the number of Hispanic-owned businesses grew 31 percent in the same period. “More and more have found that entrepreneurship is a viable option for them,” reports the president of the African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania.
- Israel said the Hamas-led Palestinian government was responsible for yesterday’s deadly suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, the deadliest in nearly two years. Israel and the United States both consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose government last week announced a troubling advance in its nuclear program, said today that his country’s military will “powerfully defend the political borders and the integrity of the Iranian nation and cut off the hand of any aggressor.”
- President Bush named US Trade Representative Rob Portman to serve as the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. The agency’s former head, Josh Bolten, took over as the President’s Chief of Staff on Monday.
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
- On Friday, April 21 at 10:30am, Heritage will host a panel of experts to discuss how the war on terror has influenced federal spending and the overall economy, and what we can expect down the line.
- On Monday, April 24 at 11:30am Central, Heritage and the Concord Coalition will host an event in Kansas City, MO as part of the nationwide Fiscal Wakeup Tour. Visit the Concord Coalition website for more details and to RSVP.
- On Tuesday, April 25 at noon, Border Patrol chief David V. Aguilar will speak at Heritage about the administration’s efforts to secure America’s borders.
- On Monday, May 1 and Tuesday, May 2, The Heritage Foundation will host its twice-annual President’s Club meeting in Washington, DC. Speakers include House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, television host John Stossel, columnist George Will, and Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) of the Republican Study Committee. The event is open to President’s Club members.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
