Pork Project

June 22, 2007
POTOMAC WATCH By KIMBERLEY STRASSEL

Pork Project
June 22, 2007; Page A10

It was about a week ago that House Democrats ran up the white flag on earmarks and begrudgingly agreed to live by their campaign pledges to make pork requests public. It was also about a week ago that Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a sweeping new state transparency law, which will give his taxpayers detailed information about every state expenditure, grant and contract. Mark the difference.

Even as Washington has fiddled on earmarks -- delaying, obfuscating and basically doing all it can to avoid enacting real reform -- a transparency movement has been sweeping the nation. Angry over Alaskan Bridges to Nowhere, and frustrated by the lack of willpower in the nation's capital, small-government activists have turned their attention to the states. If ever Washington lagged behind a movement, this is it.

In April, Kansas became the first state in 2007 to sign into law comprehensive legislation mandating a public Web site to show its citizens where all their money was flowing. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty quickly followed suit, signing his own state's reform the following month. Mr. Perry was next, and Oklahoma and Hawaii have bills awaiting their own governors' signatures. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels issued an executive order to disclose state contracts all the way back in 2005. In total, some 19 states have passed, or are now working on, legislative or administrative reforms that would hand the public tools to examine government spending.

"Transparency is the next big thing," says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. His organization, along with other national anti-waste groups, has turned this issue into a top agenda item, and they've been joined by local grassroots organizations such as Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and Washington state's Evergreen Freedom Foundation. These groups are aiming for more than just feel-good "open government." They're making a bet that transparency will succeed in limiting spending in ways that their other campaigns have not.

That hope is rooted in the idea that the best way to get Americans actively engaged in the debate over the size and efficiency of government is by giving them examples of government gone wrong. Reformers point to the current furor over Washington earmarks as proof. Tell Americans that the size of the federal government increased to a whopping $3 trillion, and their eyes glaze over. Tell them that the Alaska delegation was trying to appropriate some $300 million of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars to build a bridge for 50 people, and they go berserk. Much as they went berserk decades ago at the news the Pentagon had spent $640 on a toilet seat.

Texas shows how big the transparency debate has become at the local level, and is even offering some signs that the reformers might be on the right track. Having seen national Republicans bounced from power -- in part because of the earmark issue -- Gov. Perry got out ahead on the transparency issue, running on greater disclosure in his re-election campaign last year and proposing in January that all state agencies publish their expenditures online.

He received a boost from Republican State Comptroller Susan Combs, who got elected in part by promising more disclosure -- a message that resonated with voters angry over Washington shenanigans. Within days of taking office in January, she'd listed her department's spending "down to the pencil category" and by May was offering information for dozens of other state agencies. Her Web site runs the gamut, from the state's commission on environmental quality to its employees' retirement system, and includes data on everything from salaries to travel bills. The legislature, meanwhile, also rushed to get some good-government kudos from voters, and the bill Gov. Perry signed last week requires spending information from all state agencies, as well as state contracts and grants.

The media, government groups and blogs have been combing through the details, with some lively results. Among the first to have to answer for spending actions was none other than Ms. Combs. Within a few weeks of posting the comptroller office's outlays, a local newspaper was asking why telephone costs had nearly doubled going into fiscal 2007. Her office also had to explain why cable costs had soared (more executive staff members had wanted it in their office); she noted that this expansion in services had now been cut back and would cost less.

Which is exactly the sort of debate the reformers had aimed to inspire. Mr. Norquist argues that the very existence of transparency laws "gets rid of half the problem," since politicians are on uncomfortable notice that their spending habits are being watched. If a politician knows that Joe Public can find out that he helped award a huge grant or government contract to a big campaign donor, he might think twice about pushing the grant in the first place.

At the state level, transparency has been an easy political sell. Voters have made clear they are willing to turn spending abuse into a top issue in local elections. And while big-government politicians may not fear arguing against budget caps or spending limitations, few are stupid enough to argue against better information. If anything, state Republicans and Democrats are racing to sponsor transparency bills. The question is if any of this translates back to Washington. National politicians understand the anger, which is why Democrats ran on greater earmark transparency last year, and why we had last year's successful legislation from Sens. Tom Coburn and Barack Obama to set up a public Web site detailing all federal contracts and grants.

Yet for all the sweet talk, most of Congress is still hoping voters will forget all this hubbub about pork amid more pressing issues like the Iraq war. The uproar over Democrats' decision to hide the details of 32,000 earmark requests suggests those hopes are as yet misplaced.

Even with greater transparency, will the humiliation factor work? Amid all House Appropriations Chairman David Obey's unconvincing reasons for keeping the public in the dark, he did make the fair point that even when embarrassing earmarks have been disclosed, Congress rallies around its porksters and approves the money. It's hard to shame people who have no shame.

And that's the next stage of the earmark debate. Forcing national politicians to admit to their bad spending habits is clearly difficult. Forcing them to stop, or pay the price at the polls, is the real test of "earmark reform."

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