Stretched too thin

What do a statue of the Roman god Vulcan in Alabama ($1,500,000), a tattoo-removal program in a small California county ($50,000) and a campaign to combat teenage "Goth culture" in Blue Springs, Mo. ($273,000) all have in common?

These expenditures, along with approximately 8,000 other similar programs, were all funded by the federal government, costing taxpayers over $20 billion, according to the Heritage Foundation. Furthermore, the U.S. still has a moon-Mars initiative which would cost $44 billion over its lifetime. Not to mention the 9 percent of the newly signed $286 billion highway bill devoted to "special projects," which are really congressmen reaping the benefits of pork-barreling at the expense of the taxpayer.

In an issue of the Anchorage Daily News last week, Rep. Don Young of Alaska, Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, responded to his critics, who would rather see the money go towards rebuilding the Gulf. "'They can kiss my ear! ... That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard,'" Young went on, noting that Louisiana did quite well in his highway bill."

The United States is overstretched. I am not referring to the military or the president before his routine morning jog, but rather to the federal government's domestic fiscal abilities, especially when times are trying. We must ask ourselves how we can afford to send a shuttle to Mars but not secure the levees protecting a city of half a million people.

Last Wednesday, House Republicans designed a plan to cut $500 billion over the next 10 years from organizations like NASA and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. While this move is promising, it is well overdue and still avoids confronting the full issue.

The abuse of the federal budget by Congress takes away accountability from the states. In a capitalist society based on incentives and competition, it is hypocritical that our government cannot operate in the same manner. Spending in modern America is not one party's fault, but the system's.

In the wake of the Great Depression, we have become too accustomed to letting the federal government support certain areas without considering the consequences. States, for the most part, have relied on Congress to fund extensive programs which should be financed locally. The nation has been fortunate to have been able to afford this undisciplined spending in the past, but now it is time to prioritize.

The solution to spending problems will not come from the states. Since many local projects are paid for out of the national purse, there is little incentive to hold back. A type of moral hazard exists in that the state that is undertaking a federally funded project is typically only incurring a fraction of the costs. This is exactly why programs that are not vital to national security or the fundamental rights of citizens, and thus under the constitutional purview of the federal government, should be the responsibility of the state. Transportation, education and welfare are programs we have wrongly taken for granted on a national level.

The United States is distinguished from most of our European allies because instead of being a welfare state, we were founded on the premise of free enterprise. If you want better government benefits while paying higher taxes and working fewer hours, then perhaps living in the model laissez-faire environment is not for you. Americans pride themselves in believing that money is best kept locally in the hands of the regional leaders and people who have earned it. There is too much inefficiency, fraud and abuse on the national level to get your dollar's worth.

Confucius once said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. While there is no easy way to come up with the $150 billion that the Louisiana state delegation is set to request from Congress, it is essential that our leaders take action to ensure that we are fiscally prepared to prioritize emergencies over pork-barreling. Had Congress let Missouri deal with the threat of "Goth culture" infiltrating its teens and taught disciplined spending to the states all along, more necessary expenditures would have been made to actually protect the people Congress is purported to represent.

As every American antes up almost $1 to build "Don Young's Way," a $231 million "bridge to nowhere" connecting a town of 14,000 to an island of around 50 people in Ketchikan, Alaska, we are entitled to question Rep. Young on the necessity of this federal capital investment. Perhaps we should put the money toward people who actually need it now.

Mark Littmann is a senior finance concentrator from New York. His e-mail address is mjl@wharton.upenn.edu. Case of the Mondays appears on Mondays.

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