Ports pork

Timothy Carney:

The Senate recently passed a bill authorizing money for the Army Corps of Engineers with a price tag of about $14 billion. The House version of the Water Resources Development Act passed at $15 billion. In a conference committee, lawmakers from both chambers hammered out the differences, and in the end came to a compromise: $23 billion.

While not that unusual, this bill’s growth behind closed doors certainly defies the civics-textbook explanation of how a bill becomes a law. The 450 earmarks in the final bill, including many that appeared only in the final version, also don’t quite reflect the promises Democrats made after passing their “ethics reform” bill earlier this year. Looking closely at this legislation — and who stands to get rich off of it — gives a good education in the way Washington really works.

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Other backdoor earmarks included Sen. Barbara Boxer’s $1.8 billion for flood control around the Santa Ana River. Sen. Jim DeMint, a chief Capitol Hill critic of porking, argues that even if one agrees this project is needed, and even if one agrees that taxpayers in Iowa and Maine ought to be footing the bill for the people of Orange County, one has to ask why Boxer, the chairwoman of one of the committees that produced the bill, didn’t insert her earmark earlier in the process.

Sen. Hillary Clinton won a $10 million earmark in conference committee for revitalizing the Port of Rochester, which the city is trying to turn into a tourist destination and an entertainment district. Tourism and downtown revitalization is not part of the Army Corps of Engineer’s responsibilities, but the bill was full of such projects.

Congress’ ethics reform bill, passed this year, was supposed to stop this sort of thing....

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Things are not so different under the Democrat leadership. Clearly the Republicans are still in an the scam because the bills passed both houses with a veto proof majority. When it comes to port pork they are all pigs.