Earmarks are earmarks. Outgoing Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) knows this, and incoming Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Dan Inouye (D-Hawaii) knows it as well. With the chairmanship of the subcommittee handling the largest portion of discretionary spending changing hands, and changing parties. It stands to reason that Alaska’s loss is Hawaii’s gain.
That’s not how things work, as Alaska’s Anchorage Daily News boasts:
Sens. Ted Stevens of Alaska and Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii are the best of friends in the Senate, so close they call each other brother.
Both are decorated veterans of World War II. They have worked together for nearly four decades as senators from the two youngest and farthest-flung states. And they share an almost unrivaled appetite for what some call political pork.
Stevens, an 83-year-old Republican, and Inouye, an 82-year-old Democrat, routinely deliver to their states more money per capita in earmarks — the pet projects lawmakers insert into major spending bills — than any other state gets. This year, Alaska received $1.05 billion in earmarks, or $1,677.27 per resident, while Hawaii got $903.9 million, or $746.05 per resident, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group that tracks such figures.
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Inouye says: “I don’t see any monumental changes.” And if you remember the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings, Inouye, the Senate chair of the “bipartisan” witch hunting lynch mob, then said: “The gentleman will proceed.” Indeed.
The article quotes incoming Senate Transportation Committee Chairperson Patty Murray (D-Washington), the ones who give us those funky Alaskan bridges about which we snicker or fume: “What is good for the goose is good for the gander. … I tell my colleagues, if we start cutting funding for individual projects, your project may be next.”
The full Senate Appropriations Committee will be chaired by West Virginia’s Bobby Byrd, who came by his reputation as an earmark hoarder with deliberation. He might date the tradition back to some unknown Roman statesmen who exists only in his particular version of the universe.
My question, though: With a new chairman for the defense appropriations subcommittee, will they construct a state-of-the-art Naval facility in Barrow and name it after Inouye?
The House Defense Appropriations subcommittee will be chaired by Jack Murtha. Will he provide a Johnstown, PA firm with money to produce body armor to protect our troops from IEDs in Okinawa?
Pork is not going anywhere. These guys and gals know how to share our money.
