The Bridge To "More Stuff"

If you want a good idea of just how out-of-control spending has become in the Republican Congress, just look at the recent kerfuffle over the "bridge to nowhere". John Stossel documents what's going on in just one state - Alaska:

Big spender Ted Stevens responded to (Sen. Tom) Coburn's good suggestion to kill a "Bridge to Nowhere" with a tantrum on the Senate floor: He threatened to resign and "be taken out of here on a stretcher."

Good! Sen. Stevens, please go. I'll even help carry the stretcher.

Unfortunately, Congress has an unwritten code: "Don't threaten the other congressmen's loot." The Senate reprimanded Coburn by voting 82 to 15 to save the Bridge to Nowhere.

The Ketchikan, Alaska, bridge is particularly egregious because it's a bridge to a nearly uninhabited island. Yet it will be monstrous -- higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and almost as long as the Golden Gate. Even some in Ketchikan laugh about it. One told us, "Short view is, I don't see a need for it. The long view ... I still don't see a need for it."

Last week, Alaska's other senator, Lisa Murkowski, said it would be "offensive" not to spend your money on her bridge. When she first became a senator, I asked her if Republicans believed in smaller government. She was unusually candid: "We want smaller government. But, boy, I sure want more highways and more stuff, whatever the stuff is."

I'll say. Alaska's pork projects spanned 67 pages. They get much more than other states. "Oh, you need to come up," she said. "You would realize it's not pork. It's all necessity ... People look at Alaska and say, 'Well, gee, they're getting all this money.' But we still have communities that are not tied in to sewer and water. There are certain basic things that you've got to have."

But my children shouldn't have to pay for them. If people want to live in remote areas of Alaska, why can't they pay for their own sewers and water, through state or local taxes, or better yet, through private businesses? Why should all Americans pay to run sewer lines through the vast, frozen spaces of Alaska? Because Alaska has no money?

Don't believe it. Alaska has so much money, it has no state income tax or sales tax. Instead, it gives its citizens money from something called the Alaska Permanent Fund.

Stevens, Murkowski and Don Young, who once told critics of the Bridge to Nowhere that they could "kiss his ear," are not unique. Republican politicians talk about limited government, but the longer they are in power, the more they vote to spend.

Spending your money, they want "more stuff."

It's antics like the farce put on by Alaska's representatives that make you wonder whether Republicans deserve to be in control of Congress. There are many who favor a split government, with the White House and Congress controlled by different parties. I'm not sure I'm there yet, but there certainly was less government growth when the GOP Congress was battling the Clinton White House than there has been with the GOP running the whole show.

Either the GOP has to quit talking about smaller government and do something about it, or conservatives will not feel compelled to return them to power in '06.

UPDATE: The Bridge to Nowhere has been defunded.