To better appreciate the pain of powerful but porkless John Kasich, one might drive scenic Route 38 in northeastern Minnesota.
Kasich is a totally engaging Republican congressman from Ohio who heads the House Budget Committee. He has been an irrepressible force in the so-called GOP revolution in which the budget would be balanced, power returned to the states and waste, fraud and abuse swept into the dustbin of history.
Last week was one of the more ironic during a revolution turned into a retrenchment. Principles fell into potholes amid a spending frenzy that might even strike envy in the heart of the most profligate Major League Baseball owner.
Those fiscally sensitive Republicans, cheered on by many Democrats, passed a $218 billion six-year highway bill that breaks all planetary records for extras defined as “pork.”
Basically, the economy is going great guns, and more revenue than estimated has come to the federal government. So the Republicans in this re-election year have set aside last year’s historic deal to balance the budget, spent like crazy and left for some other time the question of what to cut to make up the difference.
By a formula, 95 percent of the highway bill is distributed to the 50 states. The rest goes to individual projects sought by your elected representatives, including mass transit and bridges–and other matters.
This time, the House has found $500,000 to study pedestrian access to the Kennedy Center, $3 million to research spinal cord injuries, $1.6 billion for a botanical garden and $27.2 million for seven bridges over the Fox River courtesy of Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).
Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), a veritable King of Concrete who runs the Transportation Committee (and is on the Kennedy Center board), has seen to it that 130 of the 1,467 special deals go to his state, including $7 million for a transportation museum in Allentown.
Then there’s one that piqued my curiosity: It was described in a brief sentence in The Washington Post as “$9 million to establish a center for national scenic byways in Duluth,” at the behest of Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.).
Because even the congressman’s spokeswoman was fuzzy on what this was, she suggested I call Gary Tonkin, an official with the Arrowhead Regional Development Commission in Marcell, Minn. “He’ll be involved with the center,” she said.
“Well, they’re calling it a `center,’ I guess, but there’s nothing that’s actually going to be built,” said Tonkin, whose group oversees transportation planning in a seven-county area and is chagrined that this would be called pork.
Hmmmm.
He said that his organization, which is largely funded by the state, is involved in the scenic byways program started in 1996 by the National Highway Transportation Administration.
“All-American Roads are our country’s finest byways, the best of the best,” the official literature reads. “They are destinations unto themselves and exciting adventures for all ages.”
In fact, there are 20 that have received this designation. They range from the Selma to Montgomery March Byway (43 miles), which marks the march led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., to the less-grandly titled Connecticut State Route 169, a 32-mile, 25-town route with “rustic farmlands, forests, farmsteads, open spaces, and historic structures and features” (it is not clear, given the government’s grammar, whether the features are historic too).
As Tonkin recalled, Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, who then headed the highway administration, went to Minnesota last summer to dedicate the Edge of the Wilderness Scenic Byway, a 47-mile stretch from Grand Rapids, Minn., to Effie, Minn.
“Our group does lots and lots of proposals so a couple of us said, `Hey, why don’t we do a proposal’ about an office which would offer help to anybody who wanted to spruce up a byway.”
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When Slater arrived, “We rode with him in the car to the dedication. We told him about our proposal. He met the people up here, and it all came together from there.”
So the notion is to initially add three or four people to Tonkin’s office and use $1.5 million a year for six years. They would advise groups seeking to manage their national scenic byways, be it in marketing their byways, adding kiosks and developing brochures or “providing amenities such as historical interpretation programs,” like a history of the forests along Route 38.
Oberstar loved the idea, Tonkin said. “The scenic byways connection is very important to him. The Baby Boomers will be getting older, and they will be traveling more. They want to learn about the areas they are traveling through.”
Also, foreign tourists are big business “and those people want to learn about this country. Just driving along some freeway doesn’t tell them anything,” he said, perhaps short-selling the cultural insight to be gleaned by passing a succession of Denny’s, Taco Bells and Shell stations.
But if there is a byways office here, why do we need one in Duluth? “We feel we are in a better position since we here have a grass-roots understanding. We’re from a rural area and have the real experience.”
Unfortunately, a byways center will not be found in the district of Kasich. In fact, not a single special project will be found. He took a pass, finding the entire bill a big sellout.
It’s 43 percent bigger than the last such bill. “That’s too much in anybody’s book,” he said.
Kasich believes that the highway program should end. States should tax their citizens and build their own roads. “A state like Illinois would win because it would have its own money, wouldn’t have to send it to Washington and be bound by Washington’s regulations. You’d get more infrastructure for the buck.”
Kasich finds fellow Republicans, taking a more pragmatic tack these days under a chastened Speaker Newt Gingrich, to be hypocrites. “We came to Washington to transfer programs to the states, like welfare. You’re telling me the states can take care of welfare but not concrete?”
Kasich is an interesting sort who wants to run for president. He relishes being a rebel, yet desires to be liked by most. It’s a tough balancing act and raises the prospect of his becoming a distinctly domesticated dissident.
Therefore, he declined my invitations to name specific projects or specific colleagues.
“I won’t get caught up in questioning other people’s motivations or decision-making. But they all know it’s way too much spending. A lot of people held their noses. They know it’s over the top.”
Truth in packaging
The media here, especially television, fall short when it comes to full disclosure about the talking heads they parade before you.
Take the case of Stuart Taylor Jr., an A-list legal journalist who has been a high-profile commentator on the Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones matters. His main gigs are with the National Journal and Newsweek, with his Journal column often re-run in a fine local legal weekly, Legal Times.
It now turns out that Taylor was writing tough columns about President Clinton and appearing as an analyst while negotiating with Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr to work for him, perhaps writing the potential impeachment report to Congress. Taylor agonized for weeks, then decided not to go.
His newest Journal column refers to Starr as “everything Clinton is not: honest, principled, and utterly inept at spin.”
Neither Taylor nor the Journal, which knew of the talks, mentions his dealings with Starr in the column or elsewhere in the April 4 issue.
But Legal Times, which learned about them Friday, decided not to run the new column as planned in its next issue. Thank goodness somebody felt queasy.