TheAgitator.com
The Hell With Don Young
Saturday, April 10th, 2004Here’s what Alaska’s only but very powerful congressman put into the federal highway bill:
Even by the standards of Alaska, the land where schemes and dreams come for new life, two bridges approved under the national highway bill passed by the House last week are monuments to the imagination.One, here in Ketchikan, would be among the biggest in the United States: a mile long, with a top clearance of 200 feet from the water â 80 feet higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and just 20 feet short of the Golden Gate Bridge. It would connect this economically depressed, rain-soaked town of 7,845 people to an island that has about 50 residents and the area’s airport, which offers six flights a day (a few more in summer). It could cost about $200 million.
The other bridge would span an inlet for nearly two miles to tie Anchorage to a port that has a single regular tenant and almost no homes or businesses. It would cost up to $2 billion…
…People here in Ketchikan, in far southeastern Alaska off the coast of British Columbia, are grateful for Mr. Young’s efforts, and they can certainly use the 600 or so jobs that a vast government works project would bring. A veneer mill, supported by $17 million in federal aid, lies empty and rusting, in search of an owner. The town’s biggest job provider, a pulp mill, shut down in 1997.
But as a transportation solution, the Ketchikan bridge is seen as something of a joke. It would replace a five-minute ferry crossing.
“Everyone knows it’s just a boondoggle that we’re getting because we have a powerful congressman,” said Mike Sallee, 57, whose mother homesteaded here and who now runs a small timber operation. “That ferry of ours has been pretty darn reliable.”
…In all, the current House bill would give Alaska $540 million in earmarks, including down payments of $120 million for the Ketchikan bridge and $200 million for the one at Anchorage. Those two costs alone are more than the total for earmarked projects in all of 41 other states, according to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense…
…The bridge in Anchorage would cross Knik Arm, which is clogged by ice blocks the size of cars for much of the year, and connect the city to an undeveloped area around Port MacKenzie. In their proposal, state officials said it was needed for domestic security and to “coordinate operations” between the Port of Anchorage and the MacKenzie port, which has only one permanent tenant…
…It calls for a span that will be longer than the George Washington Bridge, over the Hudson River, and will connect to Gravina Island through a middle island. Builders will be cutting into the flank of a mountain to anchor it.
Yet the bridge may make for a longer trip to the airport, people here say. Anyone driving from Ketchikan to catch a plane will have to head south of town, move past a main drag frequently clogged with tourists, ascend a mountain, cross the mile-long bridge westbound, then circle north around the back of Gravina Island to reach the airport. In addition, the airport will have to build a parking structure, at an estimated cost of $11 million.
“The funny thing, when that big bridge is done, it will take more time to get to the airport than it does now on our little ferry,” said Dale Collins, a mariner who heads the ship pilots association here. “But it sure will be big. It’s unbelievable, the size of that bridge.”
Now here’s what Congressman Dan Young has to say for himself:
But if this is pork, the Republican behind the House bill says bring it on, with extra fat. Representative Don Young, Alaska’s lone member of the House, where he is chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is already known as Mr. Concrete but would like to wear another title as well.“I’d like to be a little oinker, myself,” Mr. Young told a Republican lunch crowd here, taking mock offense at the suggestion that Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, directs more pork to their state than he does. “If he’s the chief porker, I’m upset.”
…Mr. Young, mindful that the highway bill comes up for renewal only once every six years or so, and that the House Republican Conference imposes three-term limits on committee chairmanships, says the opportunity to pour so many federal dollars into his home state comes once in a lifetime, and should be seized.
“If you don’t do it now, when are you going to do it?” he said at the luncheon. “This is the time to take advantage of the position I’m in, along with Senator Stevens.”
He said he would support an increase in the federal tax on gasoline â a “user fee,” he called it â to pay for even more projects than were included in the newly passed bill…
…”If I had not done fairly well for our state,” he said, “I’d be ashamed of myself.”
…”It’s not a good way to legislate, although I got a lot of stuff in it,” Mr. Young told The Anchorage Daily News in December. “I mean I stuffed it like a turkey.”
What a smug shit. It’s not surprising that the GOP would have its own Robert Byrd. What’s disappointing is how the party has abandoned even the pretense of limited government, and allows him to get away with it.
I don’t know what to say. Wow.
Alaska has no shortage of huge bridges and four lane highways connecting tiny communities. Ask any Alaskan you know about the “million dollar bridge to nowhere.”
I believe his name is Don Young.
Definitely a Congressman who needs to be ousted, just as much as Pelosi and the Dems. This is the kind of Elephant that pushed me out of the party.
Problem is, how do we do that without getting someone else who will perpetuate the problem — if only by supporting their party’s national agenda, whether or not they send home this kind of pork?
I remain convinced that the leader who will eventually restore some degree of integrity to the United States government will woo the voters with charisma, irrefutable integrity, and unquestionable sincerity; ideology will play little or no part in it. Don’t look for a candidate who says the right things. Look for a candidate whom everyone loves who also believes the right things. That’s what leaders are made of.
Young and his kind of politician is neither good for this nation nor for his constituents. They know that, and should dump him off one of their existing pork-built bridges. Bleh!
Call me out if i’m wrong here, because i’m an interested party rather than an American myself, so my knowledge of the intricacies of the system is fairly limited.
It seems to me that the main reason this problem arises is because Federal tax and spend policies have jumped monstrously out of control so that there’s a huge pot of money which everyone figures will be wasted by someone else if they don’t get their hands on it first.
Would people be this happy if taxes were wasted by state authorities? I can imagine that some wouldn’t care, but I think the closer you get to home, and the more it seems like your own money being wasted, the more you care.
So, from a libertarian perspective, wouldn’t it be most sensible to have much lower Federal taxes which fund only those projects critical to the nation as a whole? State authorities could then set taxes according to the prevailing ideological balance of the people in that state, and organise welfare/infrastructure/etc. payments accordingly. I realise that Federal expenditure also has a wealth redistributive effect, and that cancelling that immediately would cause a lot of instability, but if it were phased out of a period of time people would have time to get more used to migrating where the work was.
What would the drawbacks be? I can’t see that many from the angle i’m looking.
Ugh
Radley Balko’s on top of recent pigs feeding at the trough here and here.
The best part of the transportation bill:
I heard it called Stingy today because it doesn’t fund high-speed rail transit between Peoria and Springfield, Illinois.
Stingy!
Those heartless Republicans!
I wonder what is the present value of all the future maintenance costs required to keep the bridges serviceable?
i.e. the initial cash outlay is only the beginning of all the spending on these bridges.
Who’s going to discipline him? Frist? Hastert? Please…
I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Gingrich.
Off with their heads damnit. (Ms. Dani)
Ah what I wouldn’t give for a conservative Democrat and a Real World Libertarian to take this SOB out.
Don Young Receives First Ned Beatty Award
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I was talking to Shark last night about my recent purchase of some George Dickel whiskey. The subject of taxes came up. We discussed Hoey Robbinsââ¬â¢ post of a few weeks ago in which he told us all how much
DON YOUNG: HOG WILD
Pork Jerky, Alaska-style Glenn Reynolds, N.Z. Bear and the rest of the pork-busting blogosphere are doing a fabulous job shedding light on all the dripping fat in Washington. I think Alaska GOP Rep. Don Young deserves a targeted blog…
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