Bush Signs Pork-Laden Transportation Bill

After 22 months of arguing, cajoling and threatening, President Bush signed the $286.5 million Transportation Bill, of which about $24 billion is pure pork. Dieticians would say that a diet of 9% marks a huge improvement on the average American’s diet, but the country shouldn’t swallow this. It’s spending without a strategy, and both parties stand guilty of fiscal irresponsibility.

A transportation bill is needed. In one of his most understandable statements, Mr. Bush said, “Highways just don't happen.” America’s infrastructure has been past its peak for the better part of 20 years, and loads of money must be spent to bring things up to snuff. A decent spending bill here would be good for the nation. Speaking like Lord Keynes, Mr. Bush explained as he signed the bill, “People have got to show up and do the work to refit a highway or build a bridge, and they need new equipment to do so. So the bill I'm signing is going to help give hundreds of thousands of Americans good-paying jobs.”

Yes, except this is a bill with enough junk in it to keep the war in Iraq funded for a month (almost). For example, there’s $2.3 million for the beautification of the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California (naming it after his predecessor in Sacramento, Pat Brown, Sr., would be a real step toward beautification), and $6 million for graffiti elimination in New York (off by a factor of 1,000 if they’re serious), or nearly $4 million for the National Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio, (Packards were cars that couldn’t make it in the free market – perhaps moving them to a natural history museum with the rest of the dinosaurs could save a few bucks) and for the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan (once the joy of employee discounts for all wears off, most Ford dealerships will be museums).

Nowhere is the bill is there an articulation of just what America’s transportation needs are nor is there a strategy to pursue those goals. It’s all well and good for the Transportation Department to claim the nation must spend $500 billion over six years (as it has) to spruce up the nation’s transportation infrastructure. However with oil at $66 a barrel and rising, with population continuing to shift southward, and with security a new concern, it would make more sense to ask just what projects are needed and why rather than put a chicken in every pot, or more accurately, 14 transportation projects in every Congressional District.

This money is wasted if it is not spent on things that will speed people and products to their destinations. Wider roads, more trains, additional airport space will all do their bit, but there is a tendency for traffic (vehicular or otherwise) to increase as the capacity of the infrastructure expands. Urban, and now suburban, sprawl increases the transportation requirements, and there are social and environmental issues that will affect this and be affected by that sprawl. The questions, though, aren’t even being asked let alone being debated and decided. As Everett Dirksen allegedly said, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.” And real deficits.



© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.


Home