Sunday, July 29, 2007
Editorial: This little porker comes to market
Sure the money would come in handy, but we've lost our appetite for pork.
From the RoundTable blog
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It was awfully thoughtful of Rep. Bob Goodlatte to earmark $250,000 in federal funds for Roanoke's historic downtown market. Bet the people in Kalamazoo, Mich., think so, too. Or not.
If we don't like pork going elsewhere we shouldn't salivate when it's served here. Sure Downtown Roanoke Inc. could find some good uses for the money, such as much-needed sidewalk improvements, but that doesn't mean the pork won't leave a bitter aftertaste.
Look, you can smear lipstick all over a pig and you still have a sow's ear. Or something like that. The point is you can't decry wasteful spending by Congress on the one hand and reach out and grab a check with the other. Even if it would make Goodlatte look like a swell congressman looking out for his district.
True, there is much work to be done on the city's market. Downtown Roanoke Inc. wants to improve the all-inclusive infrastructure to better serve businesses and their customers. That's great, and once they pull together a plan to do so, DRI should shop around for funding.
That just might lead DRI to search for a federal grant program, possibly even one that falls under the umbrella of the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act where this $250,000 is earmarked.
A good, strong project that is of benefit to the public should compete and win federal funds on its merits. It doesn't hurt to have a congressman's backing, but clout alone shouldn't be the reason one community gains funding over another.
Taxpaying voters were so incensed last year by congressional scandals linked to pork-barrel projects served up as political favors to lobbyists and campaign boosters that they handed Congress to the Democrats.
Democrats have done better. A moratorium on earmarks for most appropriations bills has cut pork by more than half this year, but it's still at $13 billion, according to the Citizens Against Government Waste, which compiles the annual Pig Book.
That pork remains is due in part to constituents who grumble that it's just terrible that Congress wastes their money, but then demand to know how much bacon their representative brought home. There's only one way to break the cycle: cold turkey.
