In a transparent attempt to appease the anti-pork crusaders with a meaningless half-measure, Congress has defunded the Bridge to Nowhere and replaced it with a blank check to the state of Alaska.
Radley Balko at The Agitator is, well, agitated, and rightfully so:
This is smoke and mirrors. It’s a cheap stunt by the GOP to deflect public criticism that doesn’t really change much of anything. All the conference committee did was remove the earmark for the bridges. Alaska will still be getting the same obscene amount of money from the federal government, it’s just that the state won’t be required to use it to build those two particular bridges. It’ll be up to the executive and the state legislature to decide how to spend it.
I disagree with Balko about one thing. He says this move “doesn’t really change much of anything,” but I think it actually makes things worse. The “Bridge to Nowhere” was a powerful metaphor for the broader problem of pork-barrel spending. It was a fantastic bludgeon with which to repeatedly bash Congress’s shameless purveyors of pork over the head. There’s a reason 60 percent of the public has heard of the “bridge.” (That’s an amazing statistic, if you think about it. This is the same public that knows all about Natalee Holloway but has never heard of Ben Bernanke.) The Bridge to Nowhere is easy to understand and virtually impossible to defend. It’s a perfect symbol for absurd, irrational government behavior. Thus, it resonates with people who don’t usually pay much attention to the goings-on in Washington. It “clicks” with the average citizen. It plays in Peoria.
Now the metaphor is defanged, the bludgeon blunted. And that, I think, is precisely why the GOP made this “smoke and mirrors” move: they knew it would look like a victory for the anti-pork crusaders, and might even briefly fool some of us into thinking we’d won, but would simultaneously deprive us of a key weapon in our battle to convince the broader public that pork is bad (which it is — always — but all the moreso now, during this time of war, crisis and debt, when we absolutely cannot afford it), and that we need to rebel against it.
I say, fight back, blogosphere. Don’t be satisfied with a Pyrrhic victory. It’s time for a new, almost-as-powerful metaphor. The Bridge to Nowhere has been replaced with the Blank Check to Nowhere. It’s still pork, and we ought to keep oinking about it. Loudly.
(Hat tip: Scientizzle and InstaPundit.)
P.S. BizzyBlog notes another reason why today’s development is bad news: “Worst of all, because Alaska still has the money, ‘Waste Ted’ Stevens probably won’t resign as he promised to if the bridge wasn’t funded.”
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November 16th, 2005 at 4:58:19 pm
Well, while the GOP is clearly playing games here, let me remind you that a bunch of Democrats, indeed almost all of them, voted NOT to diver the bridge to nowhere funds to Louisiana. So, while the GOP might be trying to save face here, let’s remember every Senator who voted againt the amendment to divert the funding is the bad guy (girl).
November 16th, 2005 at 5:04:58 pm
Ted Stevens is a joke. The way he got his panties in a bunch and threatened to resign (if only!) when Sen. Don Young dared to suggest diverting the $ earmarked for the rightfully maligned “Bridge to Nowhere” to hurricane-ravaged LA was a disgrace. Given Alaska’s relatively low population and the relatively high places its elected representatives hold in Congress, I’d bet they pull in way more $ per anum than they’re paying in taxes. In fact, I’m confident their citizens are getting a better bang for their tax buck than almost any other state.
November 16th, 2005 at 5:08:14 pm
My bad: Young isn’t a Senator and obviously wasn’t the one who made the suggestion.
November 16th, 2005 at 5:09:37 pm
It was Sen. Coburn :-)
November 16th, 2005 at 5:25:13 pm
Isn’t Young the Chair of House Trans, the one who got all the Alaska port in the first place? I forget the name of the Alaska Congressman who is the Chair of House Trans.
November 16th, 2005 at 5:47:44 pm
Ugh, this is why I never want to go into politics–I would never know what to do if something like this happened to me.
November 16th, 2005 at 6:13:34 pm
Anyone ever see that episode of the Simpsons where Homer and Mel Gibson remake “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”?? I vote we do that.
November 16th, 2005 at 7:29:52 pm
Republicans and Dems are both playing games with the Bridge to No-where because it nakedly exposes how earmarks are used by both parties to defraud American taxpayers. During Reagan’s era, there might only be three or four dozen earmarks to a particular bill. Today, those earmarks are in the thousands. They are a disgrace and fly in the face of the Republican Revolution and any efforts the Dems are trying to make to appear serious.
November 16th, 2005 at 7:35:16 pm
You know, it seems to me the entire Congress is made up of liars. Time to vote the bastards out!
November 16th, 2005 at 9:17:26 pm
The GOP may be the “bad guys” here, but the Dems have a vested interest in the pork barrel game continuing. This was seen when a handful of Senate Republicans attempted to kill the Bridge to Nowhere and transfer the funds to Katrina efforts, and only one Democrat voted in favor (Sen. Feingold). The Dems get plenty of pork too, which is why approps bills still pass through Congress rather easily.
November 16th, 2005 at 9:33:06 pm
Agreed… this isn’t a partisan issue, it’s an issue of the overall political culture.
November 17th, 2005 at 12:35:52 am
Landrau (sp?) also voted for it, the Dem Senator from Lousiana.
November 17th, 2005 at 2:42:59 pm
Though this is annoying, is there any doubt that some people are getting a little scared about Coburn and what his passion is driving him to do?
10 years ago, hell, 5 years ago, this whole scenario would have never happened. I just saw in my paper that Libby Dole, who voted against Coburn, now is coming out FOR the most absurd piece of pork in not just NC, but the entire East Coast, in my humble opinion: the Triangle Light Rail system.
Read how an initial quick $64M light rails system is approaching $2B (that is no typo). Feel as ashamed voting for her as happy I am for voting for Richard Burr (backed Coburn).
November 18th, 2005 at 9:38:50 am
PMJI Senators, but Alaska is entitled to the same highway funds as the rest of the 50 states. If we want to micromanage federal spending in Alaska, we have to do it for all the states. All of you people pointing out that Alaska gets a blank check - contact your state representatives and tell them to send your state’s highway funds back to the federal treasury.
We’re always for trashing the other guy’s pork, but somehow our local cows are always sacred.
November 18th, 2005 at 3:21:09 pm
Hey servant, California took a 113 mil cut on it’s equity bond–of 150 mil cut nationally. Besides, I think multiple amendments for cutting pork were intriduced, but this one get more attention because of the catchy “bridge to nowhere” element. In fact, I believe Coubrun said he was fine with cutting pork for his state, too, when another member called him out on it on the floor.