Before Hurricane Katrina struck the coast this summer, it was business as usual in Congress. There was the usual partisan bickering and the usual pork spending. And Republican Congressman Don Young of Alaska went hog wild. As chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, he got nearly 1 billion dollars worth of pork directed at his state including money for two bridges linking mostly remote areas.
A mess of thorny devil's club and salmonberries, along with an old chicken coop, surrounds the 40-year-old cabin where Mike Sallee grew up and still lives part time on southeast Alaska's Gravina Island. Sallee's cabin is the very definition of remote. Deer routinely visit his front porch, and black bears and wolves live in the woods out back. The 20-mile-long island, home to fewer than 50 people, has no stores, no restaurants and no paved roads. An airport on the island hosts fewer than 10 commercial flights a day.
Yet due to funds in a new transportation bill, which President Bush is scheduled to sign Wednesday, Sallee and his neighbors may soon receive a bridge nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge and 80 feet taller than the Brooklyn Bridge. With a $223 million check from the federal government, the bridge will connect Gravina to the bustling Alaskan metropolis of Ketchikan, pop. 8,000.
Included in the bill's special Alaska projects is $231 million for a bridge that will connect Anchorage to Port MacKenzie, a rural area that has exactly one resident, north of the town of Knik, pop. 22. The land is a network of swamps between a few hummocks of dry ground. Although it may or may not set the stage for future development, the bridge, to be named "Don Young's Way," will not save commuters into Anchorage any time, says Walt Parker, a former Alaska commissioner of highways.
Then came Katrina. Recently Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma tried to block the $453 million slated for those two bridges and redirect the funds for rebuilding Interstate 10 which was severely damaged by Katrina. The response?
Sen. Ted Stevens, the veteran Alaska Republican, was dramatic in his response. "I don't kid people," Stevens roared. "If the Senate decides to discriminate against our state . . . I will resign from this body."
Alaska's Republican representatives obviously find the concept of charity and of helping others foreign. The people of Alaska, at least, do not.
And, there is a curious twist to the story: Many residents of Alaska appear to support forfeiting the bridge money for hurricane relief. "This money, a gift from the people of Alaska, will represent more than just material aid; it will be a symbol for our beleaguered democracy," reads a typical letter to the Anchorage Daily News.
Young, who made sure his state was one of the top recipients in the highway bill, was asked by an Alaska reporter what he made of the public support for redirecting the bridge money. "They can kiss my ear! That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard," he replied.
Ah, redirecting money to help rebuild the infrastructure of hurricane-devastated areas of the country is the dumbest thing he's ever heard. Wonderful. Coburn's attempt failed 82 to 15. Apparently if this pork were to be better-spent, then all pork would become a target for, well, being spent better. Can't have that, can we?
No comments:
Post a Comment