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Editorial: Broken 'hold' win for taxpayers
Cincinnati Enquirer
September 5, 2006
The best argument in favor of a bill to create a searchable public database of federal spending may be the name of the lawmaker who recently tried to block the bill - Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the renowned porkmeister who procured for his state the infamous $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere."
The database legislation, sponsored by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., has broad bipartisan support, and could accomplish more than anything else Washington has done in years to control runaway deficits and help make sure that your tax dollars go where they're really needed.
But Stevens wouldn't hear of it. Early in August, he invoked the traditional secret rite that allows senators to place anonymous "holds" on legislation and nominations - an archaic, good-ol'-boy practice that ought to go the way of spitoons and snuffboxes on the Senate floor.
Stevens was "outed" last week by an ad-hoc coalition of liberal and conservative blogging activists who pressured senators to see who had placed the hold.
As other senators' offices issued denials (97 in all), it became obvious that the moose tracks led right to the office door of Stevens, whose state each year receives twice as much federal largess per person (about $13,000) as Ohio or Kentucky. On Wednesday, Stevens unapologetically 'fessed up. On Friday, it appeared that Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., also way up on the federal pork list, had tried to block the bill as well.
While the Coburn-Obama bill's foes may be bipartisan, so are its many supporters - both in the Senate and across the blogosphere's ideological spectrum. They may have differing motivations but hold the same basic principle - what government does ought to be done in the open, especially when it involves great gobs of our tax money.
But Stevens had the nerve to claim he was merely worried that the database would require a costly new bureaucracy. That's a crock. The Congressional Budget Office says it would cost $4 million to create and $2 million a year to maintain, a pittance compared to the possible billions it could save in outrageous federal deals - some no doubt done at Stevens' behest - once they're exposed to public scrutiny.
Anybody could sift through the online database of $2.5 trillion in federal contracts, grants, loans and the like, compiling names and figures to prove whatever point they wished.
The "hold" also showed that Stevens has a long memory, at least when it comes to petty retaliation. Guess who had proposed last year to shift funds from Alaska's "nowhere" bridge to the reconstruction of New Orleans? Coburn. (Stevens even threatened to resign if Coburn's amendment passed; unfortunately, the Senate defeated it.)
"The only reason to oppose this bill is to continue the culture of secrecy in Washington," said Coburn spokesman John Hart.
Its passage, which seems likely, would go a long way toward ending the abuse of unaccountable, anonymous "earmarking" of billions each year in frivolous projects. It would help the public put pressure on lawmakers to stop such nonsense.
And if Ted Stevens doesn't like it, he can go pound snow.
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