Posted on 08/14/2002 6:26:43 AM PDT by RJCogburn
“NH DOES WELL in federal spending” read the headline last week over an Associated Press story about how federal spending has gone up in Republican congressional districts since the GOP won control of the House in 1994. New Hampshire, with its all-Republican delegation, has not been left out. According to the AP survey, federal spending has grown in John Sununu’s 1st District from $2.36 billion in 1994 (two years before Sununu won the seat) to $3.29 billion last year. Spending in the 2nd District, represented since 1995 by Charles Bass, went from $3.03 billion in 1994 to $4.06 billion in 2001.
Overall, congressional districts represented by Republicans enjoyed an average of $612 million more in federal spending last year than those represented by Democrats. That’s not hard to explain, suggested House Majority Leader Dick Armey “of the Potomac.”
“There’s an old adage,” said Armey. “To the victor goes the spoils.” Sununu, on the other hand, notes that spending is rising everywhere. “In any district, it’s going to go up by a third or more,” said Sununu, noting that the some of that increased spending is being driven by “homeland security” needs and the war on terrorism.
But if spending is going up by “a third or more” in all 435 congressional districts, then the majority party in the House, where all spending bills originate, can hardly be called “conservative.” Or to put it another way, if a 33 percent increase in federal spending is what “fiscal conservatives” are giving us, how much would they have to spend to be liberals?
What the AP analysis shows is that, for all their rhetoric about budgetary restraint, Republicans are much better at redirecting spending than in slowing its growth. More money is being spent on business loans and farm subsidies, for example and less on public housing grants and food stamps. Even “homeland security” can, as Congress has demonstrated, be stretched to cover a multitude of boondoggles.
“The bipartisan Farm Security Act provides a strong safety net and strengthens America’s national security,” U.S. Rep. Terry Everett of Alabama said last fall when championing a farm bill that included subsidies for peanut farmers. President Bush has also defended farm subsidies as an element of national security, “because this nation has got to eat.” Then again, he has also tied federal housing programs to the “war on terrorism.” So there is probably no spending bill in Washington that is not essential to “homeland security.”
Earlier this year, Citizens Against Government Waste published the 2002 congressional “Pig Book” of projects the organization deems to be wasteful spending. New Hampshire ranked 11th in per capita “pork” this year, up two slots from our 13th place ranking of a year ago. Surely there is room for debate over what constitutes “pork.” Sununu, for example, defended the $3.5 million for a combined sewer overflow project in Manchester, noting that the money was being spent to fulfill a federal mandate on wastewater flowing into the Merrimack River. But there are other New Hampshire projects in the “Pig Book” that have nothing to do with the public health or safety and offer no reasonable basis for federal involvement.
There is, for example, the $190,000 Economic Development grant for the Mt. Washington Valley Economic Council’s “Technology Village Incubator” to promote the growth of small, high-tech firms in Mt. Washington Valley. A worthy goal, no doubt, but is that the responsibility of federal government?
In Bass’ district, the Monadnock Ice Center Association received an Economic Development grant of $140,000 to assist in the construction and operation of year-round ice arena in downtown Keene. An ice arena is surely a nice thing for Keene to have, but should taxpayers in Oklahoma and Utah be required to contribute to it?
Then there was the $375,000 grant to the Motor Transport Association in Concord to “recruit and retrain truck drivers.” That sounds like a job for the trucking companies to do for themselves without the assistance of the federal taxpayers.
The point, too often overlooked, is that there is no constitutional warrant for Congress to be forking over taxpayers’ dollars for “economic development,” job creation, or 1ocal recreational amenities. Bob Bevill, a Republican candidate for Congress in the 1st District, issued a press release recently, proclaiming his “highest priority” in Congress would be to secure jobs for New Hampshire. New Hampshire’s jobs can best be secured through the workings of a free market. Both New Hampshire and the nation will be better off if the next representative from our 1st District would make it his “highest priority” to uphold the Constitution.
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