01 August 2008
“Pork Barrel” Spending Emerging as Presidential Campaign Issue
Candidates, critics differ on definition of and remedies for the practice
San Antonio -- The San Antonio River Walk, or Paseo del Rio, is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Texas.
About 20 million visitors come to San Antonio each year, and most of them take a stroll along the banks of the scenic stream and patronize its many restaurants, clubs and hotels.
Very few of them realize the River Walk began as a federal government project. The initial grant was $375,000 from the Depression-era Works Projects Administration in 1938.
Millions more federal tax dollars have been spent on the River Walk over the decades, fostering a tourism industry in San Antonio that now generates nearly $9 billion in annual revenues and employs more than 90,000 people.
In some circles, that kind of spending of taxpayer money carries the disparaging name “pork barrel spending”, a term that traces its origins back to the era of slavery before the U.S. Civil War, when slave owners occasionally would present a barrel of salt pork as a gift to their slaves. In the modern usage, the term refers to congressmen scrambling to set aside money for pet projects in their districts.
Typically, much of Congress’ pork barrel spending is done in gigantic, multibillion-dollar omnibus spending bills. Critics say most of the “pork” is included in the spending bills passed before an election year. That allows incumbents to go before their constituents and boast about projects that help the local community -- such as roads, dams or government installations.
A Washington-based taxpayer watchdog group called Citizens Against Government Waste publishes an annual Congressional Pig Book that details pork barrel spending.
The 2008 book listed 11,610 projects that totaled $17.2 billion. Among the more controversial appropriations were $188,000 for the Lobster Institute in Maine and $148,950 for the Montana Sheep Institute.
“It’s business as usual, unfortunately,” said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste.
“PORK” OR VALUABLE PUBLIC PROJECT?
Among the projects targeted by Schatz’s group was $9.8 million earmarked for the San Antonio River Improvements Project being carried out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“The Army Corps of Engineers program has long been a bastion for pork, and this trend continued in fiscal year 2008,” according to the Pig Book’s summary.
The San Antonio project aims to improve the river’s channel south of downtown. It is part of a 21-kilometer extension of the River Walk that is going to cost tens of millions of dollars.
In July, a U.S. Senate committee approved legislation that would require the federal government to reimburse Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, for as much as $70 million being spent on the project. There is also $10 million in federal funds set aside for construction in 2009.
A major sponsor of the project in Washington is Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican. She says the objective is “to beautify our already scenic river and open it to more recreational uses while protecting and restoring key portions of this precious resource.”
San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger says the federal money is essential “to ensure the continued success of this project,” and strongly objects to suggestions that the river project is “pork.”
He says the federal government changed the river’s course many decades ago, and the project will restore the river to its natural course.
PUBLIC SPENDING AS A CAMPAIGN ISSUE
On the national level, the debate over pork barrel spending is getting a lot of attention in this election year. (See “McCain’s pork barrel game fun and educational.”)
The Pig Book says Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama, a senator representing Illinois, sponsored 53 earmarks in 2007 that totaled $97 million. The presumed Republican Party presidential candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona, opposes pork barrel spending and sponsored no projects earmarked for his constituents.
Because effectively serving their constituents is an important criterion for re-election, prospects are dim for totally eliminating pork. Critics say the next best thing is transparency.
“In the fight against wasteful earmarks in federal spending, information is the most effective weapon,” the San Antonio Express-News newspaper said in a recent editorial.
The newspaper praised bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senators Obama and Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, which set up an Internet database where details can be found on how federal tax dollars are spent.
The Web site, USASpending.gov, lists information on government purchases and grants, along with the names and locations of businesses and institutions that receive government money.
Obama and Coburn are supporting new legislation that would post federal contracts on the Web site for public scrutiny, along with details on the bidding process and the quality of the work performed. McCain has joined them as a co-sponsor of the bill.
Watchdog groups are hailing the proposal as a way to shed more light on the often shady process of doling out the pork.
