Spendifying I Don’t Like

There are some obvious problems with, as part of the silly “Porkbusters” project, blaming “pork” for the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis. But the most obvious is that providing funding for local bridge repair projects is exactly the kind of spending generally referred to a “pork” or an “earmark.” To set up an opposition between “infrastructure projects” and “pork” is just bizarre; most of the former will also be examples of the latter — they’re local projects that benefit local constituencies, even if some are also in the national interest. And as far as definitions of “pork” go, contrasts between “shiny new” projects and “unglamorous” repairs are neither here nor there; sometimes strengthening infrastructure will involve new projects, and funding local repairs is no less “pork” than funding local new bridges.

Which, of course, illustrates why the whole “Porkbusters” thing is useless. To have a generalized opposition to “earmarks” makes no sense, and if all you mean is “we shouldn’t spend money on bad projects” this is nothing but a banality that breaks down on inherently ideological questions of what spending should be prioritized, and for these questions whether spending is national or local is beside the point. If we’re skimping on badly needed infrastructure repair because of spending elsewhere, the trillion or 2 we’re spending to install an Islamist quasi-state and terrorist haven in Iraq is an infinitely bigger problem then throwing a few bucks at local museums.