One of the famous moments on television in the past decade occurred on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2004 when the talk show host famously surprised her entire audience with new Pontiac G6 cars telling a cheering crowd – “You get a car! You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!”
Jason Tolbert
A similar scene is being repeated on the political stage as Sen. Blanche Lincoln tours Arkansas, proudly handing out federal funds to anyone who may consider voting for her re-election.
But much as the cars given out by Oprah were not paid for by her but by her corporate sponsors, Lincoln’s handouts are not out of her bank account. Instead, they are courtesy of the American taxpayer. Of course, you will not have to pick up the tab immediately. Instead, Lincoln is more than happy to put all of these goodies on the endless line of credit for your children or perhaps your grandchildren to pay.
One of the highest ticket items that Lincoln has worked on recently is $1.5 billion in aid for Arkansas farmers. Some of the farmers in the Arkansas Delta did not qualify for disaster assistance through the normal procedures as their losses did not reach the threshold. Because of that, Lincoln has been working hard to bring home “some bacon” for them.
Originally, she attached the expenditure as an earmark to a small business assistance bill. But when Republicans squawked at the price tag she sought help from President Obama. The White House promised her that if she pulled the earmark from the bill, they could find her the $1.5 billion from somewhere else in the budget. It’s not clear exactly where the Obama administration is getting the money, but for certain it won’t come out of anyone’s back accounts but the American taxpayer’s.
This $1.5 billion is only the start of her pork for Arkansas. The past few months she has traveled the state handing out more oversized checks than awarded on the PGA tour. In August alone, her office put out 60 announcements for federally funded Arkansas projects totaling over $224.7 million. That is about $7.2 million of pork per day.
At the same time, Rep. John Boozman has been running in the other direction. He tells me that the earmark system is part of what he calls the “spend now and worry later” philosophy that is driving up the federal deficit. He says he is committed to ending the earmark system.
In fairness to our senior senator, it is not all her fault. The earmark system is how the game is played in Washington, and after 18 years in the Beltway, Sen. Lincoln has become a professional. States are in constant competition for federal funds. But as each state competes for their slice of the pie, the size of the pie only seems to grow larger.
This election cycle, it seems many in the country are finally getting fed up with this system as our national debt continues to grow by over $4 billion a day. In November, it appears we will see a national tidal wave of voters saying they no longer want to play the game.
