What the hell is up with this "Bridge to Nowhere"

[Shalmanese]

Since Post-Katrina, I've been hearing more and more about this so called "Bridge to Nowhere" that's being built in Alaska. The executive summary is that the Transportation Bill that Bush signed last month includes provisions for a $223m bridge built linking a town of 8000 people with a town of 50 people in the state of Alaska.

Google News Link (http://news.google.com/news?ie=UTF-8&q=%22bridge+to+nowhere%22)

My questions are:

Is this anything but blatant pork and has anybody tried to defend it as anything but pork?
Is it really going to be built?
Would it really going to cost $223m to build if it wern't pork or is it an excuse to give plum contracts to favoured people?
Is the average American aware of this and what is their typical reaction?
Is their any sign of it being scrapped post-Katrina?

[ParentalAdvisory]

[QUOTE=Shalmanese]
Is the average American aware of this and what is their typical reaction?[QUOTE]

My reaction is that this Don Young should be impeached and jailed for at least 20 to life.

[Mehitabel]

Yeah, it's been well-publicized here, but part of our system is that someone in NY doesn't get to rise up and rail against pork in AK, except in a general sense.

[toadspittle]

[Marge Simpson]"And that was the only folly the people of Springfield ever embarked upon. Except for the popsicle stick skyscraper. And the 50-foot magnifying glass. And that escalator to nowhere."[/Marge Simpson]

[parthenokinesis]

I forget, is this the one that crosses egotistical blowhard lake? :) Don Young was always kinda wierd, but then most everyone who lives in AK is a bit wierd. I lived there from '93 to '96. Because of the oil revenue and its isolation from the lower 48, pork spending tends to be pretty excessive. The state is more than twice the size of Texas, only has about a million people, and half of that is in one city. There's a lot of spending major cash to put in roads to towns of 100 people. It's just a different world.

[Neurotik]

Is this anything but blatant pork and has anybody tried to defend it as anything but pork?
No and no.
Is it really going to be built?
Yes.
Would it really going to cost $223m to build if it wern't pork or is it an excuse to give plum contracts to favoured people?
Probably not and probably not. I'm pretty sure it will be a competitive bidding process. Of course, I have no idea how many bridge building companies there are in Alaska.
Is the average American aware of this and what is their typical reaction?
This specific one? Probably not.
Is their any sign of it being scrapped post-Katrina?
Nope.

[Chefguy]

Actually, there are three bridges being considered or built. The bridge to which you are referring is in Ketchikan, AK. It will connect the island the airport is on (Garvina Island) to the island that Ketchikan sits on (Revillagigedo Island). At present, people landing in Ketchikan must take a ferry across to the town, an arduous journey that takes about ten minutes. The population of Ketchikan is closer to 14,000 than 8,000. The necessity for this bridge is in question; while tourism in Ketchikan is high, it is primarily from cruise ships. There has been a lot of posturing here in Alaska from the right, who claim all sorts of nonsensical reasons for this embarassing piece of oink. It boils down to this: Don Young is the head of the transportation committee. Frank Murkowski, Alaska's current (and most unpopular Republican governor) is a former U.S. Senator whose home town is. . .wait for it. . .Ketchikan!

The second bridge is proposed to cross the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet in Anchorage. This billion dollar boondoggle has been lowball estimated at about $400 million. It will connect Anchorage to McKenzie Point on the other side of the Inlet. The reason? Nobody really knows. Excuses from airport expansion to "an alternate evacuation route from Anchorage" (to and from what, I have no idea) abound, but the bottom line is that it's an ill-conceived pork project. The proposed name for the bridge: Don Young's Way. I kid you not. Proposed by the other senile half of our proud delegation to WDC, Ted Stevens.

The third bridge is truly a bridge to nowhere, but the work is nearly done on it. Someone thought it would be a good idea to restore the Million Dollar Bridge (http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/6933283p-6832200c.html) in Cordova, Alaska, at a cost of $19 million to taxpayers. This bridge was damaged in the 1964 earthquake. The original purpose of the bridge (in 1910) was to allow trains to cross the Copper River on their way to the copper mines at Kennecott in McCarthy, AK. When the mines shut down a bazillion years ago, the railroad was allowed to fall into disrepair. A road was built out to the bridge so people could hunt and fish the area, and it's popular with tourists (I've been there, and it's a spectacular area), but the other side of the bridge is nothing but alder thickets.

All three of these projects are bullshit projects that do more harm than good, as it is "earmarked" money that takes away from road construction projects that will actually fix some things that need fixing. Don Young's shelf life has expired in my opinion, as has Ted Stevens'. These projects are an embarassment to the people of my state.

[Frostillicus]

Is it possible in this day and age to actually shame politicians into doing the right thing? The national and local media ought to be all over crap like this, but they were too busy trying to find Natalee Holloway in Aruba. :mad:

[rjung]

Maybe they just wanted another boondoggle to match the $1.5 million dollar bus stop (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7900977/) in Anchorage, AK.

[Papermache Prince]

Let's just give $23 million directly to Don Young to distribute as he sees fit. That way we'd save $200 million.

[Chefguy]

Maybe they just wanted another boondoggle to match the $1.5 million dollar bus stop (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7900977/) in Anchorage, AK.

This one is a real headshaker, particularly in light of Anchorage's laughable public transit system. Even the mayor, who is a progressive in most things, ignores public transit as a necessary evil, rather than as a critical part of infrastructure for economic well-being. When the Republicans are in power (which is most of the time here), it doesn't even get that small bit of attention. The last mayor stated that bus service wasn't necessary on weekends because "nobody works on the weekend". :rolleyes: The money could have been better used for bus purchases, snow clearing at bus stops, or a bunch of cheaper shelters for a, you know, winter city.

At the other end of the ridiculous spectrum of things we just don't understand was the building of a rail terminal at the airport that is for the exclusive use of Princess Tours. Alaska residents and casual visitors are not allowed to use the terminal or the trains that come there unless they are part of a Princess tour. It was built with tax dollars and the railroad is owned by the state, so figure that one out and get back to me.

[Sam Stone]

This problem is much bigger than Alaska, and it's not just a Republican problem. The problem is that agencies submit budgets to the federal government, and then politicians insert 'earmarks' as a way of buying votes from the public. "Vote for me, and I'll bring home the bacon from Washington!"

Often, these earmarks are not even wanted by the agency that's slated to get them. NASA gets earmarks dumped on it all the time, which it then has to implement with resources that were planned to be used elsewhere. The Army Corps of Engineers is famously being told to build pork projects all over the country. These earmarks are added without any oversight, without any sort of cost-benefit analysis, competitive grant procedures, or any other way of determining if they make any sense.


Remember the line-item veto? That used to be a big political issue. I believe both Reagan and Clinton asked for it, as has Bush. That was the main tool to be used to fight earmarks. Without it, any member of congress can stick some earmark line in a budget, and then either the budget has to be accepted whole, or scrapped and the whole process started again.

So what happens is that the budget gets put together, then members of congress start tacking on all their little pet projects. Then the budget goes into committee, and horse-trading starts in which powerful committee members haggle over which earmarks stay and which ones go. Eventually, the budget comes out of committee, and the President has to sign the whole thing or reject it. So the President is somewhat powerless to stop this kind of pork, unless he's willing to hold up the entire budget. Reagan did that to make a point, and he got absolutely slammed by Democrats, some Republicans, and the media, for 'shutting down government'.

So the earmarks continue. 'Reform' politicians come along regularly, promising to trim waste, fraud and abuse. Then they get attacked by their own constituents for not bringing home the swag, or in the next election their opponents run on a platform of, "vote for me and I'll be better for our state than this guy, who couldn't even get our bridge to nowhere built", and the guy gets thrown out of office. In the meantime, if he makes too much noise on Capital Hill he might find that he can't get any juicy committee appointments and is shut out of the process entirely.

The whole system is corrupt. It's not a Republican or Democrat thing. But to be fair, the Republicans at this time need to take the brunt of the criticism, since they've held all three branches of government for quite a while, and because they claim to be the party of smaller government. So throw the bums out.

[Chefguy]

Sam Stone: You're right on the nosey, of course. That idiotic bus stop is a prime example of the recipient scratching his head and going WTF? while taking abuse from the public who thinks he requested it. What continues to amaze me is the notion that this is 'free' money. That somehow, if the money comes from WDC, it hasn't come out of our pockets, and worse, out of a program that truly needs the dollars. Would that we could "throw the bums out". But the voting public are sheep and will pull the lever for the guy who delivers, without caring how or what that money is used for or where it came from. Education only works if one has a populace that can be bothered to read or comprehend what is happening around them. Instead, people here tend to just chuckle and shake their heads at Don Young's antics, instead of becoming outraged. The closest he came to stepping on his own dick was a couple of elections ago when it came to light that he had the worst attendence and voting record in the legislature.

[Marley23]

This stuff, as opposed to social programs in my opinion, is where a "welfare state" situation really exists. When officeseekers can get up on the platform and compete by promising more money for their home districts, there's no way to avoid a wasteful government.

[Saint Cad]

Let me play Devil's Advocate for a second. The Senator of a state does not have a responsibility to anyone other than the citizens of their own state and a Representative is only responsible to their district. Their votes on national issues should reflect what is in the interest in their constituents. When Roberts comes up for confirmation, my I want my two Senators to vote on whether or not Roberts as Chief Justice is in the best interest of California. Why should Alaskan senators care about roads in Indiana, wetlands in Georgia, or (sadly) flooding in Louisiana?

The answer is that there is a balance at work. A California Senator needs 50 (maybe 49) other Senators to care about oil drilling off Santa Barbara, historical sites in San Diego, preservation of Yosemite, timber harvesting in the Sierras etc. Sometimes it's pretty obvious - a Senator that blocks road construction in other states will be paid in kind when they need new roads in their state. Laws about oil drilling in California will effect oil drilling laws in Louisiana and Alaska. Laws regarding farming in the Great Plains affect food prices everywhere. Other times the effect of what is happening in other states on the Senator's home state is very subtle. Disaster relief in Louisiana now means disaster relief in Alaska, in California, in Texas, in Minnesota, etc. when (or if) it is needed in the future.

Add this to the fact that a Congressman wants the Federal government to spend money in their state/district for economic reasons. With a finite amount of money available there needs to be trade offs if I want the money for my voters. I'll vote for your pork that has nothing to do with my state because you'll vote for my pork that has nothing to do with your state. It's easy to write off the money spent as waste (and indeed it is) but by the same token, the Federal government is the biggest investor in the American economy (arguably after taking money out of the economy via taxes) and that money will be spent on something. If not bridges in Alaska it will be grain silos in Iowa, barnacle removers in Rhode Island, or a sandpiper preserve in Oregon. I commend the Alaskan Congressmen for making sure that the useless pork gets sent to their state instead of elsewhere.

[Apos]

With a finite amount of money available there needs to be trade offs if I want the money for my voters.

But the key issue is not that there is a finite of money available, but that there is a single discrete figure amount of money available. That isn't so. If we don't spend pork in California that doesn't necessarily mean it will get spent on pork elsewhere. It might not get spent on pork at all: it might go to a program that actually needed, or it might simply not get taxed away from anyone in the first place.

[Chefguy]

It's easy to write off the money spent as waste (and indeed it is) but by the same token, the Federal government is the biggest investor in the American economy (arguably after taking money out of the economy via taxes) and that money will be spent on something. If not bridges in Alaska it will be grain silos in Iowa, barnacle removers in Rhode Island, or a sandpiper preserve in Oregon. I commend the Alaskan Congressmen for making sure that the useless pork gets sent to their state instead of elsewhere.

Few would argue that spending the money on worthwhile projects is not commendable. Pork projects such as these bridges are insulting and useless. We have a lot of people still crapping in buckets around this state, alcoholism is rampant, schools are inadequate, roads are falling apart, etc. Uncle Ted has brought home a lot of money for worthwhile projects; these don't qualify. Submitting pork projects just because you can is bad government and bad stewardship.

[Marley23]

Let me play Devil's Advocate for a second. The Senator of a state does not have a responsibility to anyone other than the citizens of their own state and a Representative is only responsible to their district. Their votes on national issues should reflect what is in the interest in their constituents. When Roberts comes up for confirmation, my I want my two Senators to vote on whether or not Roberts as Chief Justice is in the best interest of California. Why should Alaskan senators care about roads in Indiana, wetlands in Georgia, or (sadly) flooding in Louisiana?
That's what allows this to persist. The benefits come directly to one state or area, and the cost and responsibility are spread out evenly among all 50 states. So everybody might pay a little for each project, but that's not any one person's problem. While I understand and accept the fact that pork is part of what makes the system work, in a back-scratching and "why should I vote for your bill unless there's something in it for me?" way, it can also be wasteful and irresponsible. Who really benefits from this bridge, for example? It seems the Senator is the primary beneficiary, because he gets to say he made it happen.
It's easy to write off the money spent as waste (and indeed it is) but by the same token, the Federal government is the biggest investor in the American economy (arguably after taking money out of the economy via taxes) and that money will be spent on something.
I wish that something had included better federal emergency planning and resources in the event of a Gulf Coast hurricane, or more levee repair for New Orleans. To pull an example out of thin air.
I commend the Alaskan Congressmen for making sure that the useless pork gets sent to their state instead of elsewhere.
That's terrific, but all you're saying is that he's good at gaming the system at the expense of everyone else. Many complaints about pork are arbitrary, however, one reason that so many candidates are able to run for office on the "I'll reduce government waste" platform, and sometimes cut necessary resources in the process, is because of examples like this bridge.

[Saint Cad]

But the key issue is not that there is a finite of money available, but that there is a single discrete figure amount of money available. That isn't so. If we don't spend pork in California that doesn't necessarily mean it will get spent on pork elsewhere. It might not get spent on pork at all: it might go to a program that actually needed, or it might simply not get taxed away from anyone in the first place.


The government takes in more money than they need and essential programs to run the federal government are rarely underfunded. As for what programs need money, that is subjective. The levee projects in Louisiana were seen as pork for years and now after Katrina it's "Oh SHIT!!! Why didn't we spend money on this all along?" What about social welfare programs? Notoriously underfunded but also nortoriously poorly run and very wasteful. National parks and NASA contribute almost nothing to the economy so is paying for them a waste? What is the definition of a program that needs money?

The tax break idea is interesting but runs into the roadblock of fiscal liberals that believe that the Federal government should redistribute income from the rich (people or states) to the poor (people or states). Thus no matter how lame the project is, it is not pork if the money is used to build up the area's economy. Although I consider myself a fiscal conservative, I aknowledge that there should be a certain social element to our Federal economy and I have no problem if some pork goes to Louisiana over the next few years.

Let's face reality, if Congress had a good understanding of macroeconomics and a modicum of self-control - we wouldn't be in the economic mess we're in with 11% of taxes paying interest on the national debt, a retirement program based on the infamous pyramid scheme ("Hey! Maybe there's a reason we made these things illegal."), or a military that can move and feed soldiers anywhere in the world and kick Saddam's ass but cannot evacuate New Orleans, prevent looting, and provide bread for the evacuees.

[Measure for Measure]

These earmarks are added without any oversight, without any sort of cost-benefit analysis, competitive grant procedures, or any other way of determining if they make any sense. ... Which is an outrage. Probably a 200 year+ outrage, but still.So the President is somewhat powerless to stop this kind of pork, unless he's willing to hold up the entire budget. Reagan did that to make a point, and he got absolutely slammed by Democrats, some Republicans, and the media, for 'shutting down government'. The level of outrage ebbs and flows with the occupant in the Oval Office.

I don't recall that incident with Reagan, though I'm not denying that something like that happened. I do seem to recall that Ford vetoed some budgetary bills, returning them to Congress: I think the intent was to trim some pork, but my recollection is sketchy.

Prior to GWBush, I had thought that part of the President's responsibilities was to look out for the National Interest, which involves putting limits on Congressional pork-fests. This might involve the occasional veto.

Apos
----- It might not get spent on pork at all: it might go to a program that actually needed, or it might simply not get taxed away from anyone in the first place.

... or it might not be borrowed, thus freeing up resources for private investment (assuming that we're not in a recession).

[Fear Itself]

These projects are an embarassment to the people of my state.Alaskans are peculiarly obsessed with boondoggle bridges. Don't forget the proposed bridge across Turnagain Arm (http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/stories/012201/ope_0122010013.shtml) from Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula (if Jerry Ward is for it, you can bet there is corruption involved), and the ultimate Bridge to and from Nowhere, the proposal to span the Bering Strait (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_1987_Fall/ai_5151510) between the Seward Peninsula and the Chukchi Peninisula in Siberia (53 miles!).

[Chefguy]

Alaskans are peculiarly obsessed with boondoggle bridges. Don't forget the proposed bridge across Turnagain Arm (http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/stories/012201/ope_0122010013.shtml) from Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula (if Jerry Ward is for it, you can bet there is corruption involved), and the ultimate Bridge to and from Nowhere, the proposal to span the Bering Strait (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_1987_Fall/ai_5151510) between the Seward Peninsula and the Chukchi Peninisula in Siberia (53 miles!).

Oy! You had to go and ruin a perfectly good Sunday by bringing up Jerry (I love everyone; I love homosexuals; I just don't love their lifestyle) Ward. I grew up with this little shit and he's only gotten worse with age, except now he plays the Alaska Native race card every chance he gets. Hey, guess what one of the articles on the front page of the Anchorage Times was the day I graduated high school in 1965? "Knik Arm Bridge Proposed"! How anyone can think that this is actually going to happen is beyond me. The pork money brought in for the project will be pissed away doing 'feasibility studies' by political cronies.

[Zoe]

What pork did Frist manage to wrangle for his own hometown and state from this same billl? A local college needed a new multi-million dollar parking area and they are getting it. I guess it doesn't matter that this school, David Lipscomb University, is privately owned and operated by the Church of Christ.

[Sam Stone]

Right. And Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, brought back huge swag for his state in this bill. It's not very useful trying to point fingers at Democrats or Republicans as being 'the problem'. If ever there was a bipartisan problem with government, this is it.

[Frostillicus]

Maybe George W. Bush could, I don't know, VETO the friggin' bill, or has nobody told him that the president actually has that power?

[BrainGlutton]

Yeah, it's been well-publicized here, but part of our system is that someone in NY doesn't get to rise up and rail against pork in AK, except in a general sense.

We're talking about federal pork here. It's a New Yorker's business no matter where it's spent.

[BrainGlutton]

The state is more than twice the size of Texas, only has about a million people, and half of that is in one city.

Actually, it has not quite 627,000 people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska), and its area (1.7 million square kilometers) is almost three times that of Texas (696,241 SK).

[BrainGlutton]

How come, with all these huge improbable bridges being built in Alaska, the state's capital and third-largest city, Juneau, remains entirely inaccessible by road? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneau%2C_Alaska

[BrainGlutton]

Maybe George W. Bush could, I don't know, VETO the friggin' bill, or has nobody told him that the president actually has that power?

He has the power to veto a bill in toto, but he has no line-item veto.

[Marley23]

its area (1.7 million square kilometers) is almost three times that of Texas (696,241 SK).
That's closer to double than triple... anyway, carry on. ;)

[BrainGlutton]

. . . and the ultimate Bridge to and from Nowhere, the proposal to span the Bering Strait (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_1987_Fall/ai_5151510) between the Seward Peninsula and the Chukchi Peninisula in Siberia (53 miles!).

A Bering Bridge would be Way Cool and Tres Awesome, IMO -- but who would use it? How much shipping traffic is there between Alaska and Siberia at present? I suppose it could be used for commerce between Eastern Asia and the New World in general, but in view of the distances to cover, would it really offer a monetary advantage over shipping by sea or air?

[Shalmanese]

This problem is much bigger than Alaska, and it's not just a Republican problem. The problem is that agencies submit budgets to the federal government, and then politicians insert 'earmarks' as a way of buying votes from the public. "Vote for me, and I'll bring home the bacon from Washington!"

Often, these earmarks are not even wanted by the agency that's slated to get them. NASA gets earmarks dumped on it all the time, which it then has to implement with resources that were planned to be used elsewhere. The Army Corps of Engineers is famously being told to build pork projects all over the country. These earmarks are added without any oversight, without any sort of cost-benefit analysis, competitive grant procedures, or any other way of determining if they make any sense.


Yes, those projects may or may not be pork, it's debatable. But this bridge is inarguably pork and was never presented as anything else. But why do the alaskans support this bridge? What possible benifit do they derive from it? If your state senator is going to be bringing back blatant pork, why not have it be for useful projects? In short, I don't see a single person apart from the Senator who benifits from this.

[Sam Stone]

What possible benifit do they derive from it? If your state senator is going to be bringing back blatant pork, why not have it be for useful projects? In short, I don't see a single person apart from the Senator who benifits from this.
Construction companies in Alaska, Alaskan workers, supply companies, etc. That $233 million is going to someone....

You know, it's a jobs bill. When you hear about how many jobs government 'creates', THIS is how they do it. The average citizen reads the paper and sees, "Thanks to Senator X, our state will see 1000 new jobs over the next five years, and $233 million dollars will be injected into the local economy!"

How many times have you seen an article like that? When it's YOUR state, how critically do you think about whether or not you need this particular boondoggle? From the standpoint of the locals, federal money being diverted to their community is ALWAYS a good thing. That gets the good Senator re-elected, and ensures that the whole corrupt system survives for at least another election cycle.

But other people benefit as well. Primarily the landowners who own title to the properties on the island. With bridge access, their property values will likely shoot up. Probably big donaters to the campaigns of Alaska's senators.

And here's the other flaw. Let's suppose that having a bridge is better than not having one. This may in fact be true. But the real question to be asked is whether or not $233 million in taxpayer money could be better spent elsewhere. And that's a question that government is simply incapable of answering. Every single special interest will lobby the government to convince them that their pet project is the most important thing the nation can build. They may even believe that. But how do you adjudicate between many such requests? Is a new bridge in Alaska 'more important' than, say, a new highway interchange in Diluth? How do you possibly answer that question without knowing every tiny detail of both situations?

Now imagine you are a Senator who has to pass judgement on hundreds, perhaps thousands of such issues in a year. Do you think you have even the foggiest of notions of where the money should really be spent? Not a chance. So these decisions get made based on power, who sits on what committee, and how hard a politician is willing to fight for a specific proposal. That in turn often boils down to how badly the constituents want it, which is at least a second-order variable approximating what the project is really worth.

That's one reason why government is horribly inefficient. It's not just corruption, or 'waste, fraud and abuse'. It's a fundamental, structural inabiity to filter enough information to make reasonable choices. It's why the Soviet Union couldn't feed its own people or compete in the world economy. Not necessarily because they were bad guys, but because government systems just aren't up to the task, and never will be.

Rather than pointing fingers at who's to blame for the Katrina debacle, it's worth noting that when the chips were down, government failed at EVERY level. Local, municipal, state, and federal. The failures can be traced through multiple administrations of both parties. This disaster has ripped the facade of competent government wide open and exposed it for what it is. We just need to learn the lesson.

But I'm afraid we won't. I'm afraid that, politicians being what they are they'll decide that the 'fix' for this is even more government. They'll decide that they didn't have enough money, enough control, enough departments, whatever.

If private enterprise had screwed up this badly, the pro-government types would be using this as an example of how the market 'doesn't work' for the next half century.

[Magiver]

Sam Stone: You're right on the nosey, of course. That idiotic bus stop is a prime example of the recipient scratching his head and going WTF? while taking abuse from the public who thinks he requested it. What continues to amaze me is the notion that this is 'free' money. That somehow, if the money comes from WDC, it hasn't come out of our pockets, and worse, out of a program that truly needs the dollars. Would that we could "throw the bums out". But the voting public are sheep and will pull the lever for the guy who delivers, without caring how or what that money is used for or where it came from. Education only works if one has a populace that can be bothered to read or comprehend what is happening around them. Instead, people here tend to just chuckle and shake their heads at Don Young's antics, instead of becoming outraged. The closest he came to stepping on his own dick was a couple of elections ago when it came to light that he had the worst attendance and voting record in the legislature. You could call the public “sheep” but you could also call them greedy. Everybody wants his or her piece of the pie. They’re closing down a National Guard unit that in my area that I would like to see stay (both for greed and the fact they spent a gazilion dollars upgrading the airport. ) It's truly a magnificent facility that they're still working on even though it will cease in 2010.

I don't remember who I heard this from on TV (possibly the WS report on PBS) but they stated there was an buzz in Washington about revisiting the budget.

I understand greed and pork but there should be some method to the madness of distributing funds. Highway systems affect people on a national level so there is logic in building a road THROUGH nowhere but not a highway TO nowhere. In that line of thought, if it's financially worthwhile to build in New Orleans then they should foot most of the bill for the levee system. We did this in my city with local money and it's maintained by local taxes. It’s a huge honkin system of dams and levees and the beauty of it is there are no moving parts (city engineers actually come from all over the world to study it).

Also, after looking at Satellite photo's of New Orleans there doesn't appear to be a floodgate at both ends of all the canals. WTH? The city is below sea level and they don't have floodgates? What were the engineers thinking? There's no reason they couldn't have narrowed the ends of the canal and installed a simple drop down floodgate. What a waste of Federal dollars.

[Zoe]

Sam, I agree with you that this is not a partisan problem. My senators just happen to be Republican.

Some of the most horrible problems in my state don't relate to transportation and go unsolved.

Example: Tennessee is a hotbed of meth labs. As a result, we have an enormous amount of "meth orphans" -- children who have been removed from the dangerous situations and parents. There are so many in Crossville, Tennessee that the responsible agencies haven't been able to find foster homes for them. The children have been living in jail.

Isn't it wonderful to be from Senator Frist's home state?

Back to the bridge to nowhere: I heard that it would be cheaper to buy the residents of the island "executive" style helicopters -- one for each citizen -- than to build the bridge.

[RickJay]

Rather than pointing fingers at who's to blame for the Katrina debacle, it's worth noting that when the chips were down, government failed at EVERY level. Local, municipal, state, and federal. The failures can be traced through multiple administrations of both parties. This disaster has ripped the facade of competent government wide open and exposed it for what it is. We just need to learn the lesson.
I was with you up to this point.

Of course you are correct in your assessment of the Alaskan Bridges to Nowhere fiasco in that government with money to burn is going to waste it.

But extending this to saying "the Katrina response was proof government doesn't work" makes two logical leaps. Specifically,

1. The fact that government is hopelessly wasteful in building bridges does not necessary mean government is hopelessly wasteful in providing aid to victims of natural disasters. Even you will admit, I am sure, that government is inherently more pointlessly wasteful in some things than in others. This is especially true if you measure government's wastefulness in comparison to private interests. For instance, government is almost preposterously incompetent at running a commercial business - Ontario Hydro being an amazing, almost comical example. But government actually does an okay job with highways, the Alaskan Bridges to Nowhere aside.

Government is almost always wasteful; the question is whether you get enough utility to make up for it, as opposed to private industry. I am certain private industry could run a cheap armed forces but I am unsure I as a citizen would get as much utility out of a cheap army of mercenaries as I would a professional armed forces. In the case of Ontario Hydro the government delivered no utility whatsoever (pun unintended) a private power corporation couldn't have. In the case of emergency relief, however, the scope and nature of the task is likely beyond, say, a private insurance company.

2. The criticism of Katrina has not generally been "I can't believe government is wasteful." The criticism has been specific to this incident in that people perceive - largely correctly - that the government has been much MORE inept in handling Katrina than it was previous disasters. The government has an inevitable place in preventing and ameliorating these sorts of things; what people are upset about is that they seem to be doing a much worse job here than they have done before. This criticism is exacerbated in this case by the stories of genuinely bizarre, almost criminal incompetence on the part of FEMA/DHS, local cops, and Louisiana agencies, as well as the mendacious resume of FEMA's head honcho, and is further exacerbated in the specific case of the federal government by the fact that their main election plank was that they'd be BETTER at this, not worse (I don't know what planks the governor or Louisiana and mayor of New Orleans ran on) than their opponents. If you promise to be the best at security, and you do a shit job the first time you're really tested, you should expect to take the heat.

Granting that the USA never had a while city wiped out before, there's never been this level of anger and obvious incompetence in the face of a natural disaster relief effort before in recent memory. The criticism of efforts after Hurricane Andrew weren't 1/100th this great, and they were far less merited, to be honest.

Now, generally speaking, you and I are in full agreement that government should be smaller. In the case of our government, I can think of entire ministries I'd be happy to do away with tomorrow - literally fire every single employee and spend not a penny more on them, ever. But Sam, responding to a natural disaster IS an appropriate role for government in a free society. Protecting and recovering us from catastrophic events is a core role of government. DHS/FEMA/The State of Louisiana/The City of New Orleans failed here due to utter and colossal ineptitude, not because it's structurally faulty to ask government to provide hurricane relief. And it's right and proper that DHS and its creator - the President - have taken the brunt of the criticism. For one thing, that's what DHS exists for.

Picking on the Alaskan Bridges to Nowhere, specifically, as the reason the levees didn't hold is, in any event, silly. They're different budget categories, and the amount of money the U.S. federal government wastes every year is orders of magnitude greater; that money could have come from anywhere.

[BrainGlutton]

No, really -- why is there no bridge linking Juneau to the mainland?

[Shalmanese]

Construction companies in Alaska, Alaskan workers, supply companies, etc. That $233 million is going to someone....

You know, it's a jobs bill. When you hear about how many jobs government 'creates', THIS is how they do it. The average citizen reads the paper and sees, "Thanks to Senator X, our state will see 1000 new jobs over the next five years, and $233 million dollars will be injected into the local economy!"


Jobs for whom? how many out-of-work alaskan bridge builders are there? It seems to me that all this bridge is going to do is to attract largely out-of-town workers who'll work on the bridge and then leave. Sure, local business gets a bit of a boost but how much extra commerce can a town of 8000 handle?


How many times have you seen an article like that? When it's YOUR state, how critically do you think about whether or not you need this particular boondoggle? From the standpoint of the locals, federal money being diverted to their community is ALWAYS a good thing. That gets the good Senator re-elected, and ensures that the whole corrupt system survives for at least another election cycle.


Why? If I were an alaskan, I don't see how a $233m bridge would benifit me. I'm not living anywhere near the bridge, I'm not planning on ever using the bridge. In fact, I would be rather pissed off that if the good senator was in a position to wrange $233m, he wouldn't put it towards something that has some obvious benifit. Hell, even giving each Alaskan $10,000 to dig a pot hole and then fill it back up would be preferable to this.


But other people benefit as well. Primarily the landowners who own title to the properties on the island. With bridge access, their property values will likely shoot up. Probably big donaters to the campaigns of Alaska's senators.


All 50 of them? :dubious:


And here's the other flaw. Let's suppose that having a bridge is better than not having one. This may in fact be true. But the real question to be asked is whether or not $233 million in taxpayer money could be better spent elsewhere. And that's a question that government is simply incapable of answering. Every single special interest will lobby the government to convince them that their pet project is the most important thing the nation can build. They may even believe that. But how do you adjudicate between many such requests? Is a new bridge in Alaska 'more important' than, say, a new highway interchange in Diluth? How do you possibly answer that question without knowing every tiny detail of both situations?

Now imagine you are a Senator who has to pass judgement on hundreds, perhaps thousands of such issues in a year. Do you think you have even the foggiest of notions of where the money should really be spent? Not a chance. So these decisions get made based on power, who sits on what committee, and how hard a politician is willing to fight for a specific proposal. That in turn often boils down to how badly the constituents want it, which is at least a second-order variable approximating what the project is really worth.


Yeah, maybe if you were deciding between levees in NO or earthquake prevention in LA, that would have some merit. But this is so blatantly and obviously useless pork that I don't think it was mere incompetence that got this put in. Even the most dimwitted senator would be able to figure out a million better things to spend this money on. It's not a problem with well meaning people in a flawed system, it's a fundamental flaw in how the system is structured and has more to do with the specifics of the situation than any inherent flaw in big government.

[Fear Itself]

No, really -- why is there no bridge linking Juneau to the mainland?Juneau is on the mainland, it just doen't have a road that goes there.

[Chefguy]

Juneau is on the mainland, it just doen't have a road that goes there.

Ah, but are you aware that there is a proposal in the works to build a road from Juneau to Skagway? Skagway doesn't want it. Neither does Juneau. It would wind along Lynn Canal, which would be a beautiful drive, but the thing would be prohibitively expensive to keep open in the winter because of the avalanche danger. Not to mention that Juneau is not set up for massive rubber traffic. It's built on a mountainside and has very narrow streets with limited parking. It's just another pork project.

[Fear Itself]

Ah, but are you aware that there is a proposal in the works to build a road from Juneau to Skagway? Don't get me started! As boondoggles go, this one tops them all. It looks like they cannot build the road all the way to Skagway (http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/6808078p-6697985c.html), so it will leave an 18 mile gap that still must be traversed by ferry. A $300 million road proposal connecting Juneau with the continental highway system will now dead-end 18 miles short of Skagway because the original route would have cut through a national historic landmark.

The National Park Service says the state's proposed 68-mile road would have gone through part of the Skagway and White Pass National Historic Landmark before reaching Skagway and linking with the highway into Canada. After a round of discussions between the Park Service and federal and state transportation officials, the Federal Highway Administration decided federal money could not be spent on a road to Skagway if a feasible alternative exists.What the hell is the point of that?

[Enderw24]

This article was on the front page of the Kansas City Star a few weeks ago. Justified or not, I've never seen such a blatant attempt at editorializing from a mainstream paper's news section in my life.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12330596.htm

[slaphead]

Japan. Specifically the LDP and its infamous relationship with special interests (particuarly construction) that left Japan dotted with vastly expensive white elephants and eventually did a lot to strangle the japanese economic miracle. Hugely expensive bridges to remote islands that only carried a few dozen cars a day were a particular favourite.

[BrainGlutton]

Japan. Specifically the LDP and its infamous relationship with special interests (particuarly construction) that left Japan dotted with vastly expensive white elephants and eventually did a lot to strangle the japanese economic miracle. Hugely expensive bridges to remote islands that only carried a few dozen cars a day were a particular favourite.

What, the same LDP that just got returned to power in a landslide? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_general_election%2C_2005 :)

[slaphead]

What, the same LDP that just got returned to power in a landslide? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_general_election%2C_2005 :)
Yep. That would be the one. Arguments about party reform notwithstanding, the LDP is a great example of how pork-barrel politics and gerrymandering can lead to electoral success in the midst of economic ruin. Feel free to draw your own conclusions about US politics :D

[Steve MB]

So what happens is that the budget gets put together, then members of congress start tacking on all their little pet projects. Then the budget goes into committee, and horse-trading starts in which powerful committee members haggle over which earmarks stay and which ones go. Eventually, the budget comes out of committee, and the President has to sign the whole thing or reject it. So the President is somewhat powerless to stop this kind of pork, unless he's willing to hold up the entire budget. Reagan did that to make a point, and he got absolutely slammed by Democrats, some Republicans, and the media, for 'shutting down government'.

So the earmarks continue. 'Reform' politicians come along regularly, promising to trim waste, fraud and abuse. Then they get attacked by their own constituents for not bringing home the swag, or in the next election their opponents run on a platform of, "vote for me and I'll be better for our state than this guy, who couldn't even get our bridge to nowhere built", and the guy gets thrown out of office. In the meantime, if he makes too much noise on Capital Hill he might find that he can't get any juicy committee appointments and is shut out of the process entirely.

The whole system is corrupt. It's not a Republican or Democrat thing. But to be fair, the Republicans at this time need to take the brunt of the criticism, since they've held all three branches of government for quite a while, and because they claim to be the party of smaller government. So throw the bums out.

In addition, the problem is exacerbated by the concentration of benefits and the diffusion of costs -- a few people are highly motivated to fight for their bit of pork, but nobody is highly motivated to fight to save a few dollars per taxpayer by killing it.

Maybe we should set up a system of distributing the savings for pork trimming by national lottery -- people might be more interested in a chance of winning $10,000 than a certainty of saving $10.