GOP Porkers Little Better Than Democrats
by David Keene

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $275 billion highway bill by a margin of 357-65. What is a conservative to make of this pork-laden spending bill?
Conservatives should and do expect more from Republicans when they are in control of Congress. Yet, rather than restraining wasteful spending, the Republicans are behaving little better than Democrats, dishing out pork barrel projects unrelated to the nation's highway and road system under the guise of funding transportation.

President Bush has threatened to veto any bill that exceeds $256 billion and California Republican Rep. Chris Cox has collected colleagues signatures in an effort to uphold a presidential veto if it gets to that. Unfortunately, the Congressman is a bit short on the numbers and the president is hesitant to veto a bill passed with veto-proof majorities.

If you thought to yourself that President Ronald Reagan would not hesitate to use the veto, you would be right. Reagan vetoed the highway bill of 1987 for containing 121 "earmarks," or frivolous projects mostly unrelated to transportation. By contrast, this 2004 version of the highway bill, passed by what is perceived to be a conservative House of Representatives, contains a whopping 3,193 earmarks.

Reagan knew that the veto was the only way to limit the legislated largesse of, what was at that time, a Democrat-controlled Congress.

This Republican-controlled Congress should take a note from President Reagan, and begin counting votes to ensure that they can make a presidential veto stick. This President has stated that he wants to restore fiscal discipline and this would be a good place to start. The House version of the bill clearly exceeds his target, and it is imperative that there be some reigning in of Congressional spending.

It's interesting to note that in our 1987 Rating of Congress ACU double-weighted the subsequent vote in the U.S. House to override Reagan's 1987 veto. This past year, we double-weighted the expansion of the Medicare drug entitlement, a move that lowered many Republicans' ratings but reflected the "conservative" party's willingness to spend, spend, and spend some more. When it is your friends who are working to increase spending, it makes it that much more important to be the ones to keep them--or try to keep them--true to the conservative values that brought them to Washington in the first place.

When the Republicans took control of the House in 1994 they promised fiscal restraint, not a continuation of the Democrat spoils system at taxpayers' expense. It's a scandal that only 59 Republicans voted against this bloated bill. Diverting money raised through the federal gas tax to boondoggle projects that have nothing whatsoever to do with building or improving highways is a breach of faith with the voters and conservative principles.

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, is a managing associate with the Carmen Group, a D.C.-based governmental affairs firm