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Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Secrets in the Senate
By John Stossel
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Their arrogance is stunning.

Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alas.) and Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) are the acknowledged kings of pork-barrel spending. They bring billons of taxpayer dollars to their states to ensure their hold on power. But apparently, that's not enough. They also want to make certain that you and I don't see what they get away with. So secretly they tried to keep us in the dark.

Fiscal hawks in the Senate, led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), are sponsoring a bill to create a database that would keep track of government spending. You could search that database from your home and find out who got all that special-interest taxpayer largess.

That seems like useful information for citizens who would like to keep their eyes on their spend-happy representatives.

But what's good for the taxpayers is not necessarily good for the politicians who ladle out our money, or the feeders at the government trough who get all those contracts and grants. The power brokers would rather the people not look over their shoulders.

The bill to create the database has sponsors from both parties, including Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid. It has support from 100 conservative and liberal government-watchdog organizations. It was approved unanimously by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The measure was headed for a vote in the full Senate when suddenly it was derailed by unidentified senators. The Senate, it turns out, has a rule that lets any member delay a bill -- without revealing his identity. It's called the "secret hold."

This mystery led to several days of speculation, but finally, Sen. Stevens came forward. The next day Sen. Byrd did, too.

Byrd has since lifted his hold, but Stevens hasn't. Byrd said he wanted time to read the bill and try to improve it. Stevens, who is a member of the committee that held hearings but didn't speak up at the time, now says he wants a cost-benefit analysis done before he makes up his mind. Sounds fishy to me. I think these guys just don't want us to see how they spend our money.

When the Democrats held power, I confronted Sen. Byrd about his "Honorable" Robert Byrd Highway-type projects in West Virginia. His answer was as arrogant as he was: "I would think that the national media could rise above the temptation of being clever, decrepitarian critics who twaddlize, just as what you're doing right here."

"Twaddlize?" I asked.

"Trivializing serious matters," he explained. Continued...
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About The Author
John Stossel is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.
 
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Reply # 33
Date: Sep 17, 2006 - 5:20 AM EST
Subject: NASA
Talk about governmental waste, in my opinion the biggest wastrel of billions of taxpayer dollars is still the ubiquitous NASA program. That was until the war on terrorism finally took priority. Each time NASA launches another space vehicle the cost exceeds a billion dollars and the 2007 budget, at this time, is a projected 16.6 billions and we know this figure is prone to unpredictable cost overruns. True, it costs far more money to send a manned vehicle into space than to build a bridge spanning frigid Alaskan waters to a virtually uninhabited inland. Each time NASA has a successful launch, more than a billion dollars is spent and goes up in rocket propellant and billowing smoke clouds. The International Space Station project would be a financial farce if the cost had not risen into many billions and there is no foreseeable schedule for its completion. However, the NASA program could reduce its size by half and still be able to perform the same function and continue to furnish employment for thousands of ancillary businesses and their employees. What has this statement have to do with pork barrel projects? It is almost unbelievable that our Princes of Pork allowed all that money to escape their claws and be wasted on our future, instead of installing the Robert C. Byrd International Space Station to which future generations of world citizens train their telescopes on yet another wonder hovering protectively over Byrdland. A glittering spectacle to feed Senator Robert C. Byrd’s gigantic ego and to crown all his other pork boondoggles!
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Reply # 32
Date: Sep 17, 2006 - 3:50 AM EST
Pork and the eventual cost thereof
May I contribute that there is an old Wall Street saying that seems to forecast the future of those who deal in Pork Project. "Bears make money, Bulls make money, but Pigs, well they get stuck!"

I can see two things happening in the future to remedy the abuses in public spending. It has to stop and those who are spending it like there was no tomorrow, will eventually be stopped. One way is term limits and that is the method that I personally prefer. Then there is another way which I do not endorse, but seems to be gradually creeping up on us. Some one will get enough of the abuses and will assassinate one or more of the Senators who have caused such expenses and who have such vanity and inconsideration about the way wasteful spending is driving our nation deep into possibly a situation which from which it cannot extract itself. Hipanic countries used to employ that method to rid themselves of those who did not care how much they spent as their countrymen suffered. You know your history and the French Revolution was only another of the cases where a large majority of the wasteful few were punished with a more severe punishment than imprisonment. Shall we all work toward term limits before someone starts working to solve the problem starting from the other end?
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