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Passing up highway pork
The bill, which covers six years of spending, allocates federal Highway Trust Fund money (mostly the 18-cent federal gas tax) for road and transit projects in every congressional district in the country.
Flake voted against it because it contained an estimated $23 billion in "earmarks." That's congressional-speak for setting aside money for one congressman's special project, i.e., boondoggle, in a large spending bill without having to put the project up to a vote by itself. The 1,752-page bill's all-time record 6,376 earmarks include $231 million for a bridge in Alaska that would serve an island of 50 residents. I talked to Flake Wednesday by telephone from Hawaii, where he was vacationing.
Q: Why did so few congressmen vote against the transportation bill?
A: Well, it's tough to vote against it when you have projects in it, and there were only a few of us who didn't have projects in it.
Q: But you didn't have projects in it because you declined to have a project in it, right?
A: That's correct. We were all offered at least $14 million for our districts to spend however we wanted -- and just try to relate it to transportation somehow. I just think we're headed in the wrong direction doing that. I had higher aspirations when coming to Congress than to grovel for crumbs that fall from appropriators' tables.
Q: It's not that you are against highways?
A: No. Not at all. In fact, the more earmarks we have, the fewer highways that are built. If I'm going to get earmarks for my district, believe me, I want to have as long a list as possible. So it is unlikely that I'm going to say, "Hey, my $14 million or whatever I get should be spent to finish the 202-60 interchange," which may be the most critical need in my district. No. I'm going to say I want a bike path here. I want a transportation museum here. I want beautification of this street. And as we earmark things, less money goes to highways. That's the irony in this whole thing: The more money we spend, the less money we actually spend on critical transportation needs.
Q: When you're asked what your politics are, how do you describe yourself?
A: In today's parlance, I'm a conservative. I prefer the term classical liberal, myself, a la Milton Friedman. But I consider myself conservative.
Q: We at the Trib have been probably tougher on conservatives -- for not being very conservative -- than we have been on liberals.
A: Well, I can tell you, I'm not pleased at the direction our party is headed on fiscal responsibility. We don't look very conservative at all.
Q: What is good about that highway bill? Why is it so important that it be done right?
A: Well, we have the gas tax. The purpose of a gas tax, initially, was to finish the Interstate Highway System. That was finished basically in 1980. Ever since 1980 we've just been floundering as to what to do with the money -- how to allocate it back to the states.
In 1981, I believe, there were a total of 10 earmarks in the highway bill. In 1987, President Reagan vetoed it because there were 150 -- he considered that excessive. In 1992, there were 500 earmarks. Then Republicans took over and we said we're going to change the way we do business here. Yeah, we changed it. In 1998, I believe there were 1,500 earmarks and this time 6,300 some. We simply cannot sustain this trend. We're going to be earmarking every account, and there will be less and less money going to freeways. I have a good bill I hope we can get to in the next five years, before we authorize a transportation bill again. Basically it's called "the turn-back proposal." It would cost about 3 cents per gallon of gas, instead of the current 18 cents, to maintain the Interstate Highway System -- what is truly interstate. And then there's no reason for the other 15 cents per gallon to even come to Washington. It ought to stay with the states and to let the states spend it on their critical priorities.
Q: This is a bipartisan problem, though. A lot of people who call themselves conservatives vote for these road and transit programs without criticism and without fail. This must frustrate you?
A: Yes it does. What frustrates me even more is to hear people like our leadership, over and over, refer to this as a jobs bill. "Jobs, jobs, jobs," we heard several times. "This is a jobs bill." Excuse me, but we're not all Keynesians now. I didn't think we are, as a party. The notion that we ought to do this because it is going to create jobs, assuming that more jobs are created by taking money and spending it where you think it ought to be spent, rather than the taxpayers, is simply absurd.
Q: Is the highway bill a symbol of out-of-control federal spending -- and the hopelessness of ever seeing it controlled?
A: It's the best example out there. As I've said before, this is the best example of the worst of politics in Washington.
