Americans have never been angrier about congressional privilege. But the real scandal isn’t perks, it’s pork-the projects that powerful legislators sneak into appropriations bills to benefit the voters back home. Conventional wisdom views pork as penny-ante stuff-a highway cloverleaf, say, or a new bridge. But as Everett Dirksen said, “A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. " A recent Washington Post series conservatively estimated that pork adds at least $1 billion to the federal budget each year. That, however, may be an understatement. In “Adventures in Porkland: Why Washington Can’t Stop Spending Your Money, " an expose due out this September (excerpts, page 24), author Brian Kelly catalogs a butcher’s shop of horrors that cost taxpayers $97 billion in pork in the 1992 budget alone.
Bad as it is, pork is a symptom of a still larger disease: egregious overspending. The nation’s deficit is some $4 trillion. It isn’t easy to ignore this huge, red-faced monster with a stranglehold on the nation’s economic competitiveness, but the politicians somehow manage. The issue that should be the presidential candidates’ main course doesn’t even appear on their menu. The reason nobody wants to talk about the deficit is that it would mean taking on social security and Medicare, the two most sacrosanct entitlements. Even Bush the reformer doesn’t want to draw attention to the fact that the deficit grew from $1 trillion to $4 trillion on his vice presidential and presidential watch. Apparently, the only politicians willing to speak the truth are the ones getting out of town: freshman Sen. Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, following on the heels of New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman, announced that he wouldn’t seek re-election because he was frustrated by the government’s inability to deal with the deficit.
Pork, arguably, is just the best kind of perk-a way to help your friends and help yourself The idea is simple and goes back to the founding of the republic. Legislators believe that in order to win re-election, they must bring home the bacon; sated taxpayers then return their representatives to office. Some pork projects, like North Dakota Sen. Quentin Burdick’s attempt to turn schlock entertainer Lawrence Welk’s mud-walled birthplace into a museum, do not pass what author Kelly calls “the laugh test. " But many pork projects, however ludicrous or unnecessary, make it into the budget. Defense spending is riddled with fat, in large part because Congress doles out the pork to subcontractors all across the land. Thus a congressional conspiracy kept on funding the Bradley Fighting Vehicle at least three years after the Pentagon thought it was a bad idea.
Pork is a versatile meat. Lyndon Johnson reportedly doled out slabs of it to win passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act-an instance of pork as a necessary evil. During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt summoned the congressional leadership for a top-secret meeting on the need for an atomic bomb. All vowed to put aside petty concerns. Then Tennessee Sen. Kenneth McKellar, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, took his turn. " Mr. President, I agree that the future of our civilization may depend on the success of this project, " he bellowed. “Where in Tennessee are we going to build it? " So Oak Ridge entered the annals of the atomic bomb.
Every president since Harry Truman has vowed to excise pork from the national diet. But it is the grease that makes Washington run. Sen. Robert Byrd, the “Pope of Pork, " cautioned Jimmy Carter, " The road can be smooth or the road can be rough, " but the outsider president proceeded on his anti-pork course. He won a few battles but lost the war; arguably, his presidency was doomed from the moment he took on the almighty appropriators, known as “the College of Cardinals. " George Bush may be campaigning on a reform platform now but, in 1990, facing the collapse of the much-ballyhooed budget summit, he, too, caved on the pork; the budget deal was saved by thousands of questionable projects costing billions of dollars. His aides acknowledge that the rules of the game won’t change. “Without Byrd’s help, we can’t get any of the president’s proposals through the budget process, " says one senior Bush aide. “Pork buys that support. "
Occasionally a few porkbusters emerge from the freshman class, but they quickly learn they can’t beat the system. Last year the junior senator from New Hampshire, Robert Smith, tried to trim some pork from the transportation appropriations bill. With old-timers twisting arms on the floor, his effort failed 84-14. Most new congressmen want to grow up and become appropriators themselves. So they wait quietly, accept the scraps tossed their way and hope someday they, too, will take their place at the trough. If anti-incumbent sentiment brings in many new members next year, there could be a bloody war over the next generation of appropriations leaders.
Perks and pork are just two points on a continuum of excess. Cutting out the most extreme forms of pork wouldn’t eliminate the federal deficit, but it would demonstrate that Washington has the political will to reform its profligate ways. The problem is that politicians don’t want to talk about the spending crisis, and the voters sure don’t want to hear about it. After years of living high on the hog, Americans have come to think like politicians: they want their share, which means entitlements. Torn between their outrage over congressional perks and the pork they’ve grown accustomed to, voters may have to make some tough choices themselves when they step into the voting booth this November.
Mutual sniping between Congress and the White House forced some privilege pruning last week. But high D.C. officials still have perks aplenty. Examples: ..CN.-Executive Branch
The 40-strong White House domestic staff Includes five calligraphers and florists. Flower budget $200,000.
Club White House features a pool, tennis courts, putting green, horseshoe pits, bowling alley and movie theater.
James Baker won’t fly military jets anymore: 11 such trips cost $371,599. ..CN.-Congress
House and Senate gym dues jumped to $400 annually. Stationery shops will no longer stock luxury good &
Leaders like House speaker still get a free car, but members can’t get D.C. parking tickets fixed anymore.
Once gratis medical exams on the Hill now cost $520 per year, drugs-formerly free-are no longer available. ..CN.-Supreme Court
Chief justice gets a Cadillac limo and a driver, other justices can use court-leased Lincoln Town Cars.
Each justice may hire four law clerks and two secretaries. Staff seamstress mends robes, drapes, uniforms.
The court has a gym. All staff got discounts at gift shop and cafeteria. (Justices usually eat in their offices.)
