A Coalition Of The Bribed And Coerced
"Administration officials and Republican leaders made it known that they were willing to negotiate side agreements and consider special requests to win votes." After "the president's unusual appearance on Capitol Hill, followed up with private telephone calls to wavering members...highway projects were dangled before undecided lawmakers, as well as assignments on top-shelf committees." Like the set of "Let's Make a Deal," Republican leaders "told their rank and file that if they wanted anything, now was the time to ask..."
The adage comparing government to sausages comes to mind as we inquire into some of the deal-making surrounding the House's recently passing CAFTA, brought to light by the much more widely supported and ruinously pork-laden highway spending bill passed almost immediately thereafter.
There's a world of subtext in this quote:
"Road projects are regarded as a kind of government jobs program that Republicans can safely embrace."
The adage comparing government to sausages comes to mind as we inquire into some of the deal-making surrounding the House's recently passing CAFTA, brought to light by the much more widely supported and ruinously pork-laden highway spending bill passed almost immediately thereafter.
There's a world of subtext in this quote:
"Road projects are regarded as a kind of government jobs program that Republicans can safely embrace."
posted by Management at 2:46 PM
2 Comments:
Highway Bill Full of Special Projects
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- When President Eisenhower proposed the first national highway bill, there were two projects singled out for funding. The latest version has, by one estimate, 6,371 of these special projects, a record that some say politicians should be ashamed of.
The projects in the six-year, $286.4 billion highway and mass transit bill passed by Congress last week range from $200,000 for a deer avoidance system in Weedsport, N.Y., to $330 million for a highway in Bakersfield., Calif.
For the beneficiaries - almost every member of Congress - they bring jobs and better quality lives to their communities and states. To critics, they are pork barrel spending at its worst.
"Egregious and remarkable," exclaimed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., about the estimated $24 billion in the bill set aside for highways, bus stops, parking lots and bike trails requested by lawmakers.
McCain, one of only four senators to oppose the bill, listed several dozen "interesting" projects, including $480,000 to rehabilitate a historic warehouse on the Erie Canal and $3 million for dust control mitigation on Arkansas rural roads.
His favorite, he said, was $2.3 million for landscaping on the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California. "I wonder what Ronald Reagan would say."
Reagan, in fact, vetoed a highway bill over what he said were spending excesses, only to be overridden by Congress. Meanwhile, according to a Cato Institute analysis, special projects or "earmarks" numbered 10 in 1982, 152 in 1987, 538 in 1991 and 1,850 in 1998. The 1998 highway act set aside some $9 billion for earmarks, well under half the newest plan.
"This bill will be known as the most earmarked transportation bill in the history of our nation," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks such projects in congressional legislation.
President Bush also threatened to veto the measure over spending issues, and it took nearly two years for Congress to reach a compromise that the White House would accept.
Deciding how much will go to earmarks, however, is very much up to Congress, and few lawmakers are willing to turn down a new road or bridge in their district.
"Nothing beats a ribbon-cutting ceremony on a new piece of pavement," said Peter Sepp, spokesman for National Taxpayers Union. "Road projects are regarded as a kind of government jobs program that Republicans can safely embrace."
Lawmakers were sending out press releases bragging of their accomplishments even before the bill was passed, said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. "It's a symbol of why everything else is out of control, not just highways."
The biggest beneficiaries tend to be the lawmakers with the biggest clout.
Alaska, the third-least populated state, got the fourth most in earmarks, $941 million, thanks largely to the work of its lone representative, Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young. That included $231 million for a bridge near Anchorage to be named "Don Young's Way" in honor of the Republican.
Meanwhile, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., nailed down $630 million, including $330 million for the Centennial Corridor Loop in Bakersfield, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.
The highway bill is one area where the minority Democrats aren't forgotten. Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, top Democrat on the Transportation Committee, listed 57 projects totaling $121 million he won for his district, from $8 million for a highway project to $560,000 for the Paul Bunyon State Trail.
Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said in a press release that he had "used his seniority" on the Transportation Committee to gain $16 million for the eponymous Nick J. Rahall II Appalachian Transportation Institute at Marshall University.
Not every lawmaker came seeking gifts. Two conservative Republicans from Arizona, Jeff Flake and John Shadegg, wrote Young asking that the $14 million the committee was allotting to each House member for earmarks be sent instead to the state transportation department.
Flake's office said that in the end he didn't take any projects, and Flake and Shadegg were two of only eight House members to vote against the bill.
Under the Cover of Darkness
There is a reason some votes are not called until the dead of night. Everyone knew the House vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was going to be a close one. "As the showdown neared, the sales effort became more intense. It included a personal appeal by [President] Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who were whisked to the Capitol by motorcade Wednesday morning to ask House Republicans to support the president's legislative priorities." The vote began a couple minutes after 11:00pm. "When the usual 15-minute voting period expired at 11:17 p.m.," the nays had won by a mere 5 votes. But proponents of the bill, who had made it clear that they were willing to do "whatever they need to do to get" passage of the legislation, were not ready to admit defeat. Employing a tactic that Vice President Dick Cheney once called "the greatest abuse of democracy," House Republican leaders held the vote open for an additional 47 minutes. During this time, they worked furiously to round up votes, browbeating representatives in a manner reminiscent of the 2003 Medicare vote. One representative -- Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) -- was brought into the Republican cloakroom where no less than the president himself gave him the hard sell via cellular telephone. In the waning hours of the morning, the House passed CAFTA by a vote of 217 to 215.
STICKS AND CARROTS: "Administration officials and Republican leaders made it known that they were willing to negotiate side agreements and consider special requests to win votes." After "the president's unusual appearance on Capitol Hill, followed up with private telephone calls to wavering members...highway projects were dangled before undecided lawmakers, as well as assignments on top-shelf committees." Like the set of "Let's Make a Deal," Republican leaders "told their rank and file that if they wanted anything, now was the time to ask...and members took advantage of the opportunity by requesting such things as fundraising appearances by Cheney and the restoration of money the White House has tried to cut from agriculture programs. Lawmakers also said many of the favors bestowed in exchange for votes will be tucked into the huge energy and highway bills that Congress is scheduled to pass this week before leaving for the August recess." House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MS) admitted "'it didn't hurt' that Congress was putting the finishing touches on a federal highway bill at the same time that the House was voting on CAFTA. 'It's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility' that lawmakers would tie their votes on CAFTA to getting certain projects in the highway bill, Blunt said." One observer noted, "If they voted their conscience, CAFTA would fail by 50 votes in the House.
TAYLOR-ING THE VOTE: Perhaps "one of the strangest votes" came from Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-NC) who had "vowed to vote against the pact." Yet, "as the minutes ticked by, Mr. Taylor was one of only two members recorded as not voting." On Thursday, Taylor claimed, "Due to an error, my ‘no’ vote did not record on the voting machine. The clerk’s computer logs verified that I had attempted to vote, but it did not show my ‘nay.’” One of Taylor's constituents was left wondering, "I would maintain with 63 minutes to vote and so much attention paid to who had voted, there’s no way it went unnoticed who hadn’t voted. If it was a very, very important vote to him, which it should have been, then you look up at the board and make sure your vote registered correctly.” Taylor claims that he would seek to have the error corrected in the House logs.
THE EPITOME OF A FLIP-FLOP: The case of how Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) voted is much more clear cut. Similar to Taylor, in the weeks preceding the CAFTA vote, Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) "was colorfully adamant in his opposition" declaring, "I know there is no way I could vote for CAFTA." When "the clock ran out on CAFTA late Wednesday night, with the measure apparently headed to a 214-210 defeat," Hayes had delivered on his promise. He had voted no. But, according to Hayes, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) then approached him with a simple offer for a vote switch: "Negotiations are open. Put on the table the things that your district and people need, and we'll get them." It apparently was an offer he couldn't refuse. Just as he did with his 2001 Trade Promotion Authority vote -- when "leaders had been forced to ask a teary-eyed Hayes to switch his vote" -- Hayes acquiesced, changing from a nay to an aye.
THE POLICY OF FEAR: Unable to sell the pact on its own merits, "Bush administration officials dispatched to sell the idea to reluctant lawmakers said the stakes went beyond a newly opened market in a region...They used a national security argument, saying that rejecting the deal would impoverish the region and undermine new and fragile democracies. Instability and poverty would drive people north and increase the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States." Lacking both a national security policy and an immigration policy, President Bush is now trying to present trade policy as a three for one deal.
DANCING WITH DELAY IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT: Several representatives remarked on how the CAFTA vote reminded them of the wheelings and dealings of the 2003 Medicare bill. That was the legislation with which Majority Leader Tom DeLay broke House rules by trying to buy a fellow congressman's vote. In a 62-page report, the House Ethics Committee found DeLay in fact offered to endorse the congressional bid of Rep. Nick Smith's son in exchange for the lawmaker's vote on the Medicare prescription drug bill -- a direct violation of House rules which state, "it is improper for a member to offer or link support for the personal interests of another member as part of quid pro quo to achieve a legislative goal." There are indications that similar tactics were employed in trying to get CAFTA passed and some representatives are debating filing ethics charges.
Post a Comment
<< Home