A Bridge to Future Tax Burdens

Yesterday, House and Senate Republicans implemented plans to cut $45 billion from domestic programs like Medicaid, food stamps, student loans and child-support enforcement over five years, or $9 billion per year. Here's where 5% ($442 million) of that money is going this year:

Alaska Bridges Dead? Think Again: Margaret Carlson, by Margaret Carlson, Commentary, Bloomberg: Isn't it better to tax and spend, as Democrats are always accused of doing, than to just spend and spend, as Republicans are recklessly doing now? ... You ask how the Republicans, with all their fiscal tough talk, managed to drive us over this cliff? Look at what took place just after the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina embarrassed the leadership into reconsidering what had become the signature piece of fiscal incontinence of our time -- hundreds of millions of dollars for two bridges to nowhere, championed by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.

If you, like me, thought that after the huge hullabaloo those bridges to nowhere were going nowhere in Washington, you would be wrong. Just because you saw with your own eyes Congress taking away a $442 million earmark ... for the bridges doesn't mean Alaska doesn't get the money. ... Although the bill was always a disgraceful example of out- of-control spending, it didn't grab the public's attention until lawmakers went looking for money to help the desperate people hit by Katrina. They found two bridges proposed for sparsely populated areas of Alaska -- one to Gravina Island (population: 50) and another, to a rural port, dubbed Don Young's Way in honor of Alaska's one representative. .... Americans had donated $100 million to their fellow citizens in the devastated region. Couldn't Congress forgo a little pork? Tom Coburn, the new Republican senator from Oklahoma, got specific. The money earmarked for the infamous bridges to nowhere might be used to rebuild a bridge to somewhere, specifically the span across Lake Pontchartrain, the longest causeway in the country, connecting thousands of people in Jefferson Parrish to thousands in St. Tammany in Louisiana.

Stevens, a 37-year veteran of Congress who directs an unseemly amount of cash to his home state, would have none of it. He did everything but stamp his feet and hold his breath, vowing to filibuster Coburn's amendment, even if the strain meant he'd have to ''be taken out...on a stretcher.'' He promised to ''resign this body,'' adding how he doesn't kid about such things. ... By any standard, Stevens is a mean and ruthless player on the Hill, barking at anyone who disagrees with him, and wielding power over the purse strings, the most important kind. He doesn't hide his sympathy for certain corporate interests. When Big Oil executives were called before his Commerce Committee on Nov. 9 ..., he refused to require them to raise their right hands and swear to tell the whole truth, as others are routinely asked to do. ...

While Coburn's amendment failed -- only 15 Senators had the guts to vote against Stevens -- it still looked as if Congress, for once, would do the right thing. Even Republican strategist Frank Luntz, a Stevens friend, admitted the bridges had become a national joke. ... But what was real and what was Congressional Kabuki? Did Congress pretend to kill the bridges and Stevens pretend to be mad about it? The ''earmark'' was removed, but not the precise amount of money. That means Alaska still gets the $442 million but it doesn't, by law, have to be spent on the bridges unless the governor and legislature want it to be. Guess what? They do. I bet one will be named Stevens. ...

This, while programs for the poor are being cut. New bridges to sleep under are little consolation.

Comments

[ilsm]

Can't sleep under bridges in Alaska. Too many mosquitos in two months of summer and too cold 10 months of the year.

Mark Twain had views toward congress which would be appropo today.

All they need do now is turn the empire over to Caligula.

[ken melvin]

Bridges as condos, why not?