The New York Times has come out against the Railroad to Nowhere:

Senator Lott angrily resents any description of his pet project as a right of way to the slot machines. He insists the rail line needs higher ground and his constituents better protection. But it seems clear the twin traumas of Iraq and Katrina are being used as cover. Economic development is a fine goal for the Gulf Coast, but it deserves careful consideration, not a devious rush to the pork barrel.

Americans for Prosperity responds, "When the liberal, big-government NY Times editorial board has the moral high ground over Congressional Republicans on the issue excessive federal spending, that's what we call a problem." The Club for Growth concurs: "Every other blue moon, I agree with the New York Times editorial board."

The Baltimore Sun declares "This boondoggle must be derailed."

Mississippi papers, however, are editorializing in favor of the project. From the Meridian Star:

But pork, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. And what outside interest groups may see as a waste of taxpayer dollars is, by a more objective analysis, a worthy, responsible federal investment that could significantly lessen the dollar damage caused by future hurricanes on the Coast.

This is true, but in this case things are pretty blurry for the beholder. Folks on the ground are saying very different things about how the money would be used and why then their elected officials in Washington. At the very least, the earmark's supporters should come clean about their intentions for the region and the rail line and how, specifically, the earmarked funds would be used. Otherwise, how is anyone supposed to judge on the merits. It's not enough merely to say, "I don't know art, but I know what I like," which is, at the moment, about the level of disclosure we've been getting on this earmark.

The Hattiesburg American echoes Gov. Haley Barbour’s protestations:

As the Senate prepares to consider a supplemental appropriations bill dealing with Hurricane Katrina relief next week, Barbour is rebutting critics who say a request for $700 million to relocate the CSX railroad tracks and replace it with an east-west highway is pork-barrel politics at a time when the country can ill afford it.

Barbour continued, saying "additional debris removal remains the key to rebuilding." The CSX railroad, which was just repaired at the cost of $300 million, is surely not debris. And again: if Mississippi needs the money for debris removal, why not say so and specify the expected cost and be clear about how the money will be used. $700 million buys a lot of debris removal.

The Mississippi Press agrees with the other state newspapers:

Let it be said here and now that the tracks need to be moved. Gov. Haley Barbour's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal recommended moving the tracks for safety concerns, as well as an effort to restore the U.S. 90 corridor to a more pedestrian-friendly character. Too, it will open the doors to economic development.

Making an area more "pedestrian-friendly" now rises to the level of "need"?!

Anyway, Alasandra Alawine at Porkbusters begs to differ:

[S]ticking the American taxpayers with a $700 million price tag touted as disaster relief in order to create a more pedestrian-friendly corridor, and open the doors to economic development is a tad unfair. As far [as] safety concerns forcing CSX to place crossing gates at ALL crossing[s] would address those. Overpasses and underpasses could also be utilized in some areas far cheaper then relocating the tracks to the tune of $700 million dollars.

The Washington Times publishes a piece on the emergency appropriations bill:

A supplemental spending bill for the war in Iraq and hurricane recovery passed the House of Representatives last month calling for $92 billion in federal spending.

The Senate added $14 billion for hurricane relief, and another $10 billion in unrelated spending in amendments to be debated when Congress returns this week. Because of the differences in the two spending packages, the bill then will go to a conference committee before final votes in both chambers….

"Unfortunately, too many members of Congress have gotten into the practice of responding to a disaster not by asking 'What can I do to help?' but instead asking 'What's in it for me?'?" says Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican. "Katrina showed case after case of Americans willing to make sacrifices to help those in need, and it's too bad that sentiment doesn't seem to have trickled up to Congress yet."

While we’re pleased the Times is covering this issue, they unfortunately made a bit of a mistake in their article. Actually, a major mistake. The pork projects in the emergency appropriations bill are actually not new pork, but rather corrections to pork projects that were passed last year.

But, for our friends at the Times, don't worry: you're not alone! We’ve actually been contacted by several congressional staffers who have had the same misconception. Two thoughts:

First, does it trouble anyone that Members of Congress and their staffs apparently harbour major misconceptions about the legislation that they're considering--when, that is, they're familiar with the provisions of spending legislation in enough detail to have misconceptions? That this doesn't trouble them so much (and really is a routine thing) is all the more disturbing, no?

Second, isn't this supposed to be about emergency appropriations? When our lawmakers could be considering the needs of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the needs of folks along the Gulf Coast, instead they're fretting over bits of pork from last year that didn't turn out exactly the way that they wanted them to. This is an appalling example of misplaced legislative priorities and highlights a too-often-overlooked point about earmark reform: it's not just about the money. The current earmarking free-for-fall degrades Congress across the spectrum of its activities.

USA Today made a similar error in its article on the bill. Therein is a great Pat Toomey observation:

"This is more evidence of the dysfunctional nature of the Republican majority in the Senate," says Pat Toomey, president of the conservative Club for Growth. "The leadership is right this time, but the question is will they be able to hold enough of the rank-and-file members to do the right thing."

Meanwhile Think Progress is concerned with another Sen. Cochran earmark:

Northrop Grumman operates a naval facility in Mississippi that was impacted by the hurricane season. Northup Grumman is insured for the "business disruption" costs of the hurricane. (They are currently litigating the final payout with their insurance company.) But Cochran inserted a provision that would require the Navy to pay Northrop Grumman up to $500 million immediately. The money would come out of "$2.7 billion in appropriated funds for Katrina-related damage."

Some of the spending in the emergency appropriations bill will likely be cut, reports the Shreveport Times:

The House is likely to oppose $4 billion the Senate added for farmers who've suffered losses to the hurricanes or other disasters and another $1.1 billion in emergency aid to Gulf Coast shrimpers and fishermen.

The fisheries funding, we should note, is, in some cases, more for the organized industry than the shrimpers and fishermen (wouldn't "fisherpeople" be more correct?) themselves.

National Journal’s CongressDaily suggests that "Conservatives might target items like funding for the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft, which has drawn fire because of safety concerns, and for transforming the Army into smaller, more flexible units that they say is more a peacetime move than an emergency requirement."

The cuts may not have much impact, however; other Members want to add more funding to the bill. CQ Today reports that Sen. Patty Murray "wants to add an amendment that would set up a $1.2 billion contingency fund for veterans’ care to protect against any shortfalls" and that Sen. Christopher Bond "wants to see additional funds for Guard troops."

Ed Morrissey, of Captain’s Quarters, at the Heritage Resource Bank last week, reports on a panel on slowing the growth of government. John Fund is optimstic on the long-term spending scene:

John Fund was more sanguine, noting that while conservatives might be getting pessimistic about the upcoming midterms, liberals have been positively morose about what they see is the tide of history turning against big government and socialist approaches to problems.... One reason Fund remains more optimistic comes from the decision of the New York court to cut off automatic payment of union dues for the transit union that held an illegal strike. Fund thinks that more states will enact this as policy, requiring separate collection of dues, and that the low compliance rate (it's about 15% for the transit union right now) will bankrupt the union's use of dues for politicking.

Heritage president Ed Feulner attacks Medicare spending:

The state of New York spends roughly $44 billion on that program. According to a New York Times report last year, at least 10 percent of that was simply wasted on fraudulent claims. That's $4.4 billion.

It gets worse. James Mehmet, the former chief investigator of Medicaid abuse in New York City, told the paper, "About 40 percent of all claims are questionable." That's a shocking $18 billion, big money by any measure.

Steven Malanga in City Journal explains why the government can’t stop the fraud:

The GAO report disclosed that the federal agency responsible for overseeing Medicaid employs just eight people, wielding a minuscule budget of $26,000 annually (apart from salaries), to oversee anti-fraud initiatives—a level of funding that the GAO describes as "disproportionately small relative to the risk of serious financial loss."

These fraud losses can be prevented by better legislation:

[G]ive [prosecutors] the tools to prosecute Medicaid fraud effectively—including tougher laws. Many states still do not criminalize Medicaid fraud, so officials must prosecute on insurance fraud, mail fraud, or racketeering charges. That’s not always easy, since some courts refuse to recognize Medicaid as an insurance program….

States are also making it harder for service vendors and health-care practitioners to become eligible to receive Medicaid funds.

Governments are also investing in sophisticated new technology that can monitor Medicaid’s staggering number of transactions for suspicious billing patterns.

Yet another government program that doesn’t work: a new study shows that federal spending on school computers may be ineffective. (This should come as no great surprise to any recent students. Too often, computers are seen as a substitute for actual teaching.) The National Taxpayers Union provides commentary:

Researchers from Syracuse and Michigan State Universities found mixed achievement results. Turns out that some kids are more interested in checking their email and surfing the internet than they are the lecture at hand. Gee, who could have predicted that?

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit is deservedly proud, though modest; the Philadelphia Inquirer has named Porkbusters "the most effective citizen-journalist watchdog movement in a generation."

(Also, thanks to Reynolds for a mention yesterday.)

A National Review blogger is optimistic about the prospects of earmark reform:

The online Porkbusters movement has raised awareness of it; the Senate has passed a version of earmark reform; President Bush even addressed the issue in his State of the Union. [Rep. John] Boehner is turning up the pressure at exactly the right time. But he and Speaker Dennis Hastert need to do more if they want to revive this budget. They need to use their power on the House GOP Steering Committee — which hands out committee assignments — as leverage against [Rep. Jerry] Lewis: He needs to know that his chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee is at stake.

Ron Utt's anti-earmark op-ed (we noted it on Friday) ran in the Washington Times, Birmingham News, and Pueblo Chieftain over the weekend:

Common-sense reform should require full disclosure by lobbyists of any blood, marital or other formal relationships between them and members of Congress, senior congressional staff and executive branch officials.

It's also critical to know where the money is coming from. Lobbyists should be required to immediately disclose any campaign contributions from a client or his staff. They should also reveal any contributions to charities and other organizations near and dear to a lawmaker's heart.

Many local newspapers are also speaking out against big government. The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) declares, "Complete Republican control of the White House and Congress has unleashed a pork-barrel spending spree of unprecedented proportions." The (Manchester, New Hampshire) Union Leader (one of our favorites, by the way) adds, "The North Country will pay the price of Republican overspending if President Bush's budget passes as is." The Rockingham News (Hampton, New Hampshire): "It will soon become apparent that there are issues common to all groups, whether conservative or liberal, Democratic or Republican, free-market or government control-oriented. One of those issues, for example, is keeping government spending down."

The Detroit News’s Frank Beckmann writes against pork:

The question is whether our federal and local governments are wisely spending more than 30 percent of the average American's income. Much of it is spent on worthwhile projects, such as police protection, education and infrastructure. But our politicians also engage in much questionable spending -- $29 billion in pork barrel appropriations for 2006 -- according to another watchdog group called Citizens Against Government Waste.

The Wichita Eagle, however, wavers:

Feeding the homeless -- pork? Providing security at our schools -- pork? Easing traffic congestion -- pork? Guess it all depends on how close you are to the problems.

From this angle, these don't look like frivolous projects.

That said, there's no doubt that Congress' spending habits are out of whack, and the appropriations process is in need of greater accountability.

Yes, many of these things are pork. It may well be laudatory and worthwhile to reduce traffic congestion on a particular road. That does not mean, however, that federal taxpayers across the country ought to be paying for it or that the "need" the spending addresses was a particularly urgent one. If a project's end is not a federal responsibility, there's a good chance that the project is pork, even if it accomplishes some good and appears not to be "frivolous."

Charles Kesler of the Claremont Review of Books focuses on the big problem of entitlement spending:

In 2004, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid consumed 8.4% of the national economy; by 2030, that figure is projected to rise to 14% or more. If not offset by cuts, the surge in entitlements would raise the federal government's spending from about one fifth to one quarter of gross domestic product, and bring government spending at all levels to almost one half of the economy.

Heritage’s Alison Fraser looks at the broken federal budget process that excludes all the big-ticket spending items:

The federal budget works on a pay-as-you-go-system based on when tax revenues come in and money that is paid out. When Congress estimates the cost of legislation, it looks only at expected short-term costs, using arbitrary five- and 10-year budget windows. There is no analysis of the long-term obligations or commitments.

This practice makes it easy to expand entitlements, since the bulk of the costs don’t arise until well in the future. Conversely, it gives lawmakers no incentive to fix entitlements because solutions appear costly when not analyzed in terms of existing long-term commitments.

Bill Steigerwald of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review provides some jarring statistics on the reach of big government:

About 3.1 million people work in civilian and military jobs for the federal government. But Paul Light of the Brookings Institution says that's not the "true size of government."

You also must count "the largely hidden work force" of roughly 14 million jobs created through government contracts and grants. Thus, the true size of the federal work force in 2002 was closer to 17 million, Light estimates.

Another 16 million or so toil for state and local governments, which means 33 million out of a national work force of 150 million -- 22 percent of us -- work for government. That's only 3 percentage points lower than in semi-socialist France.

For much more, see Bill Beach's Dependency Index research.

Heritage's Brian Riedl takes a swipe at agriculture subsidies in yesterday’s Boston Herald:

The U.S. is slated to spend $27 billion on farm subsidies this year, up from $9 billion a decade ago, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Heritage argues that the subsidies should go away because they are bolstering big farms rather than sustaining small farmers as they were intended.

"Farm subsidies are America’s largest corporate welfare program," said Brian Reidl, senior budget analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Want to see how much your favorite celebrity or millionaire or politician is getting in subsidies? Riedl's got the goods here.

The Wall Street Journal looks at Arizona’s current budget surplus and notes correctly government spending's strange ability to defy gravity:

Another lesson is that these revenue booms don't last forever, while the spending programs created during the good times nearly always do. Arizona would be far better off using its current surpluses as a political opportunity to construct a tax code with non-punitive tax rates to stimulate jobs, business and investment. This will make the state more resilient amid future national economic downturns.

Another good metaphor, in addition to spending defying gravity: the ratchet.

The Washington Post provides background on Rep. Alan Mollohan’s temporary recusal from the House Ethics Committee:

Mollohan used his position on the House Appropriations Committee to secure more than $150 million in appropriations for five nonprofit entities that he helped establish in his congressional district. One of the groups is headed by a former appropriations aide, Laura Kurtz Kuhns, with whom Mollohan bought $2 million worth of property on Bald Head Island, N.C.

However, Mollohan’s resignation is unlikely to cause any meaningful earmark reform, reports the Wall Street Journal:

After days of orchestrating telephone calls into his district, Republican campaign officials celebrated Rep. Alan Mollohan (D., W. Va.) being forced to step down from the House Ethics Committee because of controversy surrounding his real-estate partnerships…. That same afternoon, the Rules Committee posted a final text of a Republican lobbying overhaul bill that showed a weaker product than the widely criticized Senate-passed version.

The vote on ethics reform legislation will be April 27, and the scene does not look promising, reports BNA:

Democratic and Republican appropriators are expected to put up a fight on language designed to curb earmarks in the 11 annual spending bills, but not in authorization bills. Appropriators believe if Congress is going to address earmarks, which direct specific amounts of funds to particular projects of interest to a lawmaker, any changes made should address appropriations and authorization bills.

Reform groups, however, said April 18 that it is possible that House leaders will try to move the bill on the suspension calendar, which does not allow amendments to be offered. A leadership aide said no decision has been made on how to proceed with floor consideration, but the early calendar released for the week does not have it listed as a suspension bill. House leaders could bring the measure to the floor under a restrictive rule that would prohibit or limit amendments.

What does the bill entail? CongressDaily explains:

Key provisions of the House bill include increased disclosure requirements for registered lobbyists; a suspension of all privately funded travel until Dec. 15, at which point the Ethics Committee is supposed to report back with a proposal to amend gift and travel rules; increased transparency on earmarks; mandatory ethics training for all congressional staff but not members, and ending pension benefits for members who commit certain felonies related to their official duties.

Greater transparency is good, but there's so much more that's been left on the cutting-room floor. Is it any surprise, really?