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When is $20 billion in pork-barrel spending not enough?
Answer: When “preventing a recession” becomes an excuse for Congress to spend more.
They just gave us a 3,417-page “omnibus” bill, finishing the year with 11,000 special projects earmarks ($20 billion worth!) last year. Now they have a new excuse to add more: economic stimulus.
But one person’s shot in the arm is somebody else’s fear of needles. Even good ideas can be hijacked, and in Washington they usually are.
If President Bush’s State of the Union address opens the door by proposing a stimulus package, then every special interest in Washington will push their pet cause in the name of boosting the economy.
It will be a rerun of 2001 when Congress eventually approved a rebate of up to $300 for every taxpayer. Most Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, opposed it for two reasons: First, because the bill contained permanent tax-rate reductions, including capital gains. Second, because the $300 rebate only went to actual taxpayers. Pelosi and friends wanted to send a $300 government check to everyone, regardless of age and regardless of whether they’d paid taxes or not.
We may be in for a rebate rematch – except this time her party holds the majority in Congress.
Some – like presidential aspirant Sen. Barack Obama – suggest sending special checks for people struggling to pay their mortgages, thus linking rebates to the mortgage meltdown. (But if you’ve handled your home loan responsibly, you might not get the special help.) And Rep. Barney Frank suggests we might find a way to get state and local governments to buy America’s unsold inventory of houses.
There’s also rumbling in their ranks that “true” stimulus demands not only more money in taxpayers’ pockets, but more money spent by government as well.
Transportation will chime in to tell us that we face a crumbling infrastructure, like the bridge that collapsed in Minnesota. Amtrak will tell us its sad story. Cities and states will clamor for an outpouring of federal money.
And there will be some strange requests.
During that debate a few years ago, one lefty blogger defended spending millions of tax dollars to study bear semen, offering this convoluted explanation of its stimulus effect:
“The regional parks service hires a natural science consulting firm, who sends four zoologists to work at the Ranger Station in the national forest for six months. During that time, they take their breaks in Cheyenne, where they heavily patronize the local exotic dance club, which needs to hire another dancer, Tiffany, to meet the increased demand. With the extra money in tips, Tiffany can afford new shoes for her 2-year-old son, gets a new tattoo down at Rocco’s and buys the new Ani DiFranco album for her girlfriend at the local indie-music store. Smiles and joy all around.”
Stimulating zoologists in their off-hours is not the kind of stimulus our economy needs. But it’s just a sample of the zany ideas we can expect to hear. Every time we open the doors to the federal treasury, we’re also opening Pandora’s Box.
So stay alert. This debate will be fun.
Ernest Istook, a former U.S. congressman from Oklahoma, is a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
