For Whom the Pork Flows

Apologists for the good Senator point to his seniority and the gazillion or so dollars he has brought to Alaska as justification for once again reelecting the sad bastard to the United States Senate.

The raw numbers are quite amazing. The latest figures I recall seeing very recently (I can’t seem to lay my hands on the source) was that Alaska received over $13,000 per capita in federal benefits in a recent year and that once again we were #1 by a large margin. And we have been #1 for many years – the exact numbers are unimportant.

The question I pose to the Senator’s Peanut Gallery is, so what? What has all this swag done to improve the lives of Alaskans in any meaningful way relative to the amount expended?

My belief is the answer is far less than one would expect. Much of the boodle reflects military spending in Alaska. And while Alaska’s military bases no doubt are a significant economic factor in the communities in which they are located – primarily Anchorage and Fairbanks – many of those dollars would have been spent there regardless of who Alaska’s Congressional delegation might be – and the real benefits of these bases accrue, not particularly to Alaska, but presumably to the entire nation.

To tell you the truth, I have never made the acquaintance of any Alaskan civilian, not working directly for the Department of Defense, who claims to be making a living wage by servicing the needs of the 15,000 or so young 18-25 year old, high-testosterone, total immersionists who largely inhabit these bases. But then again I haven’t been to the Alaskan Bush Company (an Anchorage strip-joint) in many years. And I won’t bore you with the social costs borne by the State for playing host to our servicemen. And please don’t interpret any of this as a simple anti-military bias; because I do not have one.

My point is merely that there should be a significant pork deflator factor applied to the Teddy Boy Boodle Index as it relates to military spending in Alaska.

OK. So what about the rest of the swag? Well, in my opinion, it has been largely frittered away. For years one has hardly been able to pick up a paper in Alaska without seeing a list of Steven’s earmarks proudly trumpeted. I just checked Uncle Ted’s website, and stumbled across a list of bacon bits from 2005. I know there have been many lists and many, many earmarks since then; but for my purposes just one federal department’s 2005 list, from the Department of Justice, will suffice:

• $225,000 to the Nome Eskimo Community to provide prevention services to impact risk factors for delinquency and provide alcohol and drug abuse programs.
• $225,000 to the Akiachak Native Community for the tribal youth program. Using a culture-based program, Akiachak tribal members will conduct a year-round after-school and summer program using age-appropriate cultural activities to impact risk factors for delinquency.
• $154,873 to the Abused Women’s Aid in Crisis Center in Anchorage.
• $986,643 to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services for the Alaska Youth Court and Community Panel Program.
• $740,000 to Victims for Justice for training to stop abuse and sexual assault of older individuals or individuals with disabilities.

What’s wrong with the items on this list? On one level – nothing’s wrong with them. All of them appear to meet the simple public purpose test. I even support all of the listed programs. One of them was even on my department’s list of requests.

But why the Nome Eskimo Community and not the equivalent programs in Kotzebue, Bethel, or Ketchikan? Why Akiachak and not Hooper Bay or Angoon? Why the Abused Women’s Aid in Crisis Center in Anchorage and not the women’s shelter in Juneau? And how far will a couple of million go in addressing these problems? And what happens to these programs next year? Why were THESE programs funded?

You will never know. And Ted and his staff have probably long since forgotten too.

The sad fact is that any half-organized bouquet of assholes with airfare to D.C. and cab fare to the Capitol has, for the last couple of decades, had even money odds of getting some portion of their request funded if they catch Uncle on a good day and/or have a patron on his staff.

But where’s the vision or the plan? If you want to do something about domestic violence, or juvenile delinquency, or any number of other things – great! Then get serious about it. Ted has had the clout; he just has never had the vision or perseverance to stick to anything over the long haul. The funding just got pissed away. We would have been far better off with half the money - intelligently planned for and applied.

And when Ted & Co. got more ambitious than a half-a-million here and a quarter-of-a- million there – well, the bridges to nowhere speak for themselves. This mega-pork had the Alaska Department of Transportation tied in knots for months at no small cost in terms of wasted staff time and delay for other more realistic vetted projects. And of course neither project will be built anytime soon, if ever.

But, say the apologists, wasn’t (isn’t) everyone doing it – both in Congress and in the State Legislature? And what about your crimes, Elmer – when you worked for the Legislature those many years? These issues and more will be addressed on Friday. One more entry on this subject and I promise I will quit – for the time being at least.