Nevada's Congressional delegation defends 'pork barrel' spending

LAS VEGAS-Nevada's congressional delegation may be small, but it is energetic in bringing home the bacon to a cash-strapped state with a lot of needs. But critics are quick to label the programs that legislators steer towards their constituents as "pork projects."

According to the Citizens Against Government Waste 2008 Congressional Pig Book, Nevada's delegation has brought $158,779,895 worth of pork-barrel spending to the state in the 2008 fiscal year, fifteenth highest according to the per capita rankings.

According to the CAGW, Sen. Harry Reid leads the delegation with $259.5 million dollars in "wasteful spending." Next comes Sen. John Ensign with $92.5 million, Rep. Shelley Berkley with $46.7 million, Rep. Dean Heller with $31.8 and finally Rep. Jon Porter with $19 million. Much of that money, particularly in Reid's case, however, goes to defense or other spending that is not necessarily directed at Nevada.

How CAGW makes their lists

CAGW, founded in 1984 at the height of President Reagan's crusade against wasteful governmental spending, has a list of seven criteria, only one of which must be met for a project to be deemed "pork." These criteria include a project requested by only one chamber of Congress, not specifically authorized, not competitively awarded, not requested by the President, greatly exceeds the President's budget request or the previous year's funding, not the subject of congressional hearings, or serves only a local or special interest.

What is lacking, however, is any measurement of the benefits of the projects or the costs of not funding them. Projects, therefore, like the $164,500 requested by Berkley, Porter and Reid for the Las Vegas Youth Initiative or the $490,000 of Interstate discretionary funds allotted for the I-80 Fernley Interchange by Heller and Ensign are lumped in with projects like 2005's infamous $398 million "Bridge to Nowhere."

Is pork a problem?

The practice of appropriating federal funds for home state improvements dates back to Henry Clay and John Calhoun's "American System" of the early nineteenth century. Congressional opponents of their system argued at the time that federal funding for internal improvements like the Erie Canal and the Cumberland Road were unconstitutional. That argument has long since been considered moot and modern opposition usually centers on the belief of an undue tax burden caused by wasteful spending. Many analysts, however, disagree with that belief and consider pork-barrel spending just "the cost of doing business."

"If you look at the actual budget, it's just a fraction," said UNLV political scientist David Damore. "It's one of those things that these groups can kind of jump up and down and John McCain can talk about. For a state like Nevada which generally gives more tax dollars than it gets back, this is a way to level the playing field a little bit."

According to Damore, this type of spending is wasteful only in the sense that it doesn't go through the full appropriations process.

"But the reality is," said Damore, "that this is politics. This is the advantage in having a powerful congressional delegation. Even for a small one, to end up fifteenth is pretty good. If we were getting dollar back for dollar what we were giving in taxes you could say this is larding it up, but this is the way that we even out appropriations for the state."

Spokespersons for three of Nevada's members of congress agreed with the need for this type of spending today.

"Nevada's 3rd Congressional district has grown by 28% since the 2000 census," said Porter's press secretary, Matt Leffingwell, today by e-mail. "There continues to be discrepancies in federal funding formulas due to the exceptional growth in Southern Nevada. The Congressman's requests are focused on public infrastructure projects, law enforcement, health care and transportation. These are requests that fulfill the basic needs of a community."

"Congresswoman Berkley has long maintained that you need to look at the projects individually," said David Cherry, Berkley's press secretary today. "It's easy to just dismiss them all as pork, but in the case of projects that she has sought and received funds for, she would argue the merits of each one."

Cherry specifically defended Berkley's earmarks for the southern Nevada VA Medical Center and for highway improvement and maintenance.

"A large number of people come to southern Nevada to take advantage of our entertainment and gaming and a lot of those people are still coming down the I-15 or along US-95," said Cherry. "Were it not for those dollars-I mean, look at the budget crunch the state of Nevada is in right now-what shape would the roads be in if it weren't for the ability to direct funding to them?"

"Senator Reid knows Nevada's needs better than any bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. and works everyday to make Nevada an even better place to live and raise a family," said Reid communications director Jon Summers. "The funding he's able to direct to projects in Nevada goes a long way toward improving the lives of the people he was elected to represent."

Pork-barrel teamwork

Much of the spending on the CAGW list comes from members of congress on both sides of the aisle, including the two of the costliest projects, $18.6 million for the Nevada 595 program sponsored by Reid, Ensign and Heller and nearly $12.8 for the Corps of Engineers work on the Tropicana and Flamingo washes sponsored by Berkley, Reid and Ensign.

"By directing $18.6 million to the Rural Nevada 595 program, Reid was able to support the efforts of small communities in Nevada, which do not have the financial resources or options of larger communities, to improve their drinking water quality and systems," said Summers.

On the washes, Cherry noted that "if you go back a couple of decades, when it rained in Las Vegas, it flooded. It flooded the Strip and major areas where there were homes and businesses."

"Over time, thanks in large part to the spending directed by members of congress, we have built a flood-control system, including the Tropicana and Flamingo washes."

"It's one of the few bipartisan things you see in congress," said Damore. "It's bipartisan and it's cross-regional. Usually the majority gets 55 percent-55-45 is usually the split. At the end of the day, this is what the public expects from members of congress. You run into trouble when you don't do this."

EARLIER: Pig Book: Nevada ranks 15th in pork barrel spending