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New Congress to Follow the Ted Stevens Diet Plan
Stephen Gordon

Imagine the outrage if some morbidly obese person visited his or her doctor and the physician didn’t cajole the corpulent patient into beginning a serious diet.  America’s wise old family doctor, the voting public, made just that suggestion on Election Day.  It seems unlikely that the lame-duck Republican Congress or the newly elected Democrat majority is listening, though.

A dozen years ago, Republicans promised us a lean federal diet.  Instead of cutting fat from the budget, they trimmed our wallets - to the tune of $47 billion dollars in 2005 in the most recent annual example.  Currently, there are an estimated 12,000 earmarks attempting to leech their way onto the remaining nine appropriations bills scheduled for Congress before this legislative cycle concludes.

While not exactly porcine in nature, even crickets may be beneficiaries of our hard-earned tax dollars.  Indeed, our portly politicos intend to deep fry them in one million dollars of pork grease ladled from Washington’s lard vat.  Certainly we’ll learn something vitally significant from this Mormon Cricket and Grasshoppers Activity in Utah, but we could probably spend the money in a more efficient manner. 

Some alternate contenders for our tax dollars, noted by Robert Novak, are: $1.1 million for alternative salmon research in Alaska, $591,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute and $194,000 for Goose Control in the state of New York.

Not to be outdone by insects, fish and mammals; turkeys want their slice of the pie, too.  $232,000 appropriated to the National Wild Turkey Federation will buy a substantial amount of cranberry sauce.

Although some Republican Senators say they are trying to shut the “earmark favor factory” down, even their best plan falls very short of that goal.  In reality, the proposed gimmick is to continue spending at the current rate (as opposed to adding an estimated $17.1 billion to the pot).

This is similar to telling our hypothetical obese patient to continue eating his typical daily lunch of two Double Cheeseburgers, one super-sized order of fries, and a large chocolate shake followed immediately by a hot apple pie – just don’t add that couple of orders of Chicken McNuggets to go along with it.

There is no new Republican plan to eliminate the pork and no plan to reduce it.  Their plan to pork the country at the current rate probably won’t pass, either.  In other words, expect to pay for plenty of bacon.  If you can’t afford it, don’t worry -- they will simply bill your grandchildren.

Fortunately, the Democrats won a majority in both houses and we can expect things to improve.  And if you think this to be the case, it’s probably not a ham you’re smoking. 

In the spirit of true cooperation between the major parties, incoming Democrat Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Inouye is reported to have said to outgoing Republican Chairman Ted Stevens, “We pledged to each other that no matter what happens, we will continue with our tested system of bipartisanship, and we've been doing this for the past 25 years, and it's worked."

It was Stevens who championed the now infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska.  Inouye is from Hawaii.  With this level of bipartisan cooperation, one might expect our next “Bridge to Nowhere” to be significantly more expensive; Honolulu is a lot farther from the mainland than Gravina Island, Alaska is.

While the aroma of bacon sizzling in a cast iron skillet may be pleasing to most, the nauseating smell of chitterlings cooking during the heat of the summer has been known to permeate entire neighborhoods, rendering them unfit for human habitation for several weeks.  In this spirit, some Democratic leaders have suggested a solution: Transparency.  They’d like to name each earmark after the person who proposed it. 

To be sure, the plan might be enacted, but it won’t have the desired impact.  Many of our elected officials wear the pork they distribute as a badge of honor, often bragging about it on the campaign trail. A Nevada newspaper is already calling for their local shares of fresh Democratic pork.  Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi earned an embarrassingly low score of six percent by the Citizen’s Against Government Waste pork rating system.  While Democrats historically may not be as efficient as Republicans at passing pork barrel legislation, they’ve had over a decade to observe the masters of that game and now they possess the spoils.

Twelve years ago, Republicans promised to build a house with materials of substance.  It took the American public over a decade to finally decide to play Big Bad Wolf and blow their house of straw down.  Now that they’ve won control of both chambers of Congress, some Democrats are making noises about using stronger building materials than the Republicans did.  Considering the voting records and public statements of the Democratic leadership, it’s already obvious they are only building a facade.  By 2008, perhaps America will realize that it’s time, once again, to huff and puff and blow their House (and Senate) down.