David Fahrentold shoots across the bow of some government programs that never die — including a subsidy in the Ag Department for promoting U.S. farm products overseas, a long-time exchange program for Asian journalists at the University of Hawaii, and a program that pays for abandoned coal mines to be cleaned up even though most of the worst ones have already been handled. His reporting reveals the cynicism that goes into supporting these programs, which are usually the pet projects of certain legislators (the Univ. of Hawaii program is a long-time favorite of Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye). Similar projects supported by senators Robert Byrd or Ted Stevens or Rep. John Murtha were recently shelved, saving taxpayers millions. But it looks like that only happened because, with all due respect, these legislators died.
Does someone else have to die before these programs get cut out of the budget?
The kind of initiatives in question don’t cost that much relative to the rest of the budget (Inouye’s exchange program is about $15 million per year, and the Ag marketing program is $200 million). They also can probably be shown to deliver some results — it can’t be horrible for America’s image in Asia to have journalists from different Asian countries able to spend a year in Hawaii. But it’s just these kinds of programs that, when they are exposed to light by journalists like Fahrenthold, are most irritating to hard-working Americans who pay taxes. Getting rid of them would hurt a few people who benefit from them, but it would help the whole country.
