Notch Bulletin - $2 Billion for a Bridge to Nowhere? - Cut Pork to Reduce Deficit, Pay for Notch Reform

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Notch Bulletin - $2 Billion for a Bridge to Nowhere? - Cut Pork to Reduce Deficit, Pay for Notch Reform

Two bridges approved under a national highway bill, recently passed by the House, have been called ï¿½monuments to the imaginationï¿½ by The New York Times. Under the bill, U.S. taxpayers would spend $200 million to connect an Alaskan town of 7,845 people to an island that has 50 residents and an airport that offers about six flights per day. The second bridge would tie Anchorage, Alaska to a port that has a single regular tenant and almost no homes or businesses. It would cost up to $2 billion.

Although Congress and President Bush are still considering the ï¿½bridges to nowhere,ï¿½ the projects represent an ever-growing Congressional appetite to ï¿½bring home the bacon,ï¿½ especially in an election year. According to the Citizens Against Government Waste, our government has ï¿½porkedï¿½ out by $84 billion over the past four years. TSCL notes that this would be more than enough to pay for the Notch Fairness Act. Congress stuffed a record-breaking $22.5 billion in pork projects into the fiscal year 2004 appropriation bills alone. Those projects included, among other things, $50 million for an indoor rainforest project in Coralville, Iowa.

Before lawmakers cut essential programs, TSCL believes a lot more needs to be done to cut the pork from annual spending bills. A study by the Taxpayers for Common Sense, for example, found that eliminating the 27 most wasteful highway projects under consideration in the fiscal year 2005 highway legislation would save more than $24 billion. The projects were selected on the basis of significant local opposition, high overall cost to federal taxpayers, significant impact on the environment and whether the roads undermined existing local businesses by routing traffic away.

Congress can find the money to pay for Notch Reform, but can they find the will? According to recent Social Security statistics, about 8.5 million Social Security recipients were born during the Notch years from 1917 through 1926. Notch Reform now has more than 100 co-sponsors, a level of support that has not been seen since 1993 when support for action on Notch Reform was reaching a peak. Weï¿½re extremely excited about this and making extra efforts to continue what we see as a very positive momentum.

Your contact with Members of Congress while they are in their home districts and campaigning for re-election is a very important opportunity to ask for co-sponsorship of ï¿½The Notch Fairness Act.ï¿½ To help ensure enactment of Notch Reform legislation, we need to return Notch Reform supporters to office. Please contact your Members of Congress and candidates running for office and ask them to co-sponsor or support Notch reform legislation.

Sources: ï¿½Road Pork Bloats Highway Bill,ï¿½ Taxpayers For Common Sense, June 2, 2004. ï¿½Built With Steel, Perhaps, But Greased With Pork,ï¿½ Timothy Eagan, The New York Times, April 10, 2004. ï¿½CAGW Identifies Record $22.9 Billion in Pork,ï¿½ Citizens Against Government Waste, April 7, 2004. ï¿½Congressional Pig Books,ï¿½ Citizens Against Government Waste, 2003, 2002, 2001.

July 2004