B'ham News: Alabamians in Congress adept at securing cash

WASHINGTON - The number of community projects in Alabama financed by federal tax dollars has increased 16-fold in the past decade, part of the increasingly aggressive effort by members of Congress to steer ever-larger chunks of the federal budget back home for local endeavors.

Last year alone, in one of the more conservative estimates, Alabama's nine-member congressional delegation landed funding for 291 special projects in Alabama, the highest total ever for the state. The $345 million spent on those projects is more than 3½ times higher than 10 years ago.

Problem is: you've got 98 other Senators and 428 other Representatives who are doing the same thing. Combine that with a "compassionate conservative" President who has yet to veto a spending bill (or any other bill, for that matter), and you get the biggest spending spree in American history. There is no excuse for this kind of waste, and conservatives are right to express their outrage about it, particularly when the source of the problem often lies so close to home:

Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan and nonprofit budget-watchdog group in Washington, ranked Alabama 12th in the country in terms of "pork" per capita. ...

During the past 10 years, Citizens Against Government Waste has counted 1,435 Alabama-based projects worth more than $2.2 billion, all listed in one of the several federal spending bills that are divided by subject. ...

A handful of the largest earmarks for Alabama are defense-related, such as purchasing military equipment that may be made or used in Alabama by military personnel from around the world. The majority of the projects, however, are intensely local, whether in urban, high-tech centers in the largest cities of in the farthest reaches of rural counties.

In 2004, $20 million was earmarked for an administration-operations complex for the Missile Defense Agency at Redstone Arsenal, and then there was $15,000 for the Gordo Old Town Hall in 2003 from the National Park Service's Historic Preservation Fund, to name just two.

State-by-state lists of earmarks are available at www.cagw.org.

The most generous of the appropriations bills to Alabama has been one for transportation, treasury and housing, which included 373 Alabama projects worth more than $909 million from 1995 to 2005. These are the big-ticket road, research and building projects, many of which were inserted under the powerful hand of [Sen. Richard] Shelby, who was chairman of the transportation appropriations subcommittee for several years. Traditionally, those who write the bill hold great authority over what is included and what isn't.

There's no doubt that Sen. Shelby has been the most profligate of Alabama's big spenders. (Just one more reason why Alabamians should have re-elected Admiral Jeremiah Denton back in 1986, by the way.) The Democrat-turned-Republican never met a pork project he didn't endorse. How, for example, can you justify using federal dollars to build a tram extension between the Alabama Space and Rocket Center and the Huntsville Botanical Gardens? Sen. Shelby did just that - to the tune of $229,000. That pales in comparison to other expenditures that he has supported, but this one stands out in my mind because - 1) it's just down the road from me, 2) it is an unnecessary frill that primarily rewards lazy-asses who could just as easily walk (it's a friggin' garden!), 3) the City of Huntsville is wealthy enough to pay for it with its own tax dollars, and 4) I'm sure that the Boy Scouts would have been happy to cut a nature trail through the woods for free, if there's not already one there.

I'm of the firm belief that the federal government's scope should be limited by the powers delegated to it by the Constitution. The debate over "internal improvements" goes back to the early days of the Republic (Remember Henry Clay?), but it's a debate that was lost almost as soon as it began. Even so, it is still possible for Congress and the President to curb the worst of the excesses with a minimum of fiscal discipline. Unfortunately, that's a virtue that seems to be lacking in this President and this Congress.