The report includes two examples in Missouri. Really, though, one should have been counted for Illinois rather than Missouri, which leaves us with only one citation for the Show-Me State. The expenditure that I dispute should be classified for Missouri — but without any dispute over its uselessness and absurdity — is the $430,000 given to the Army Corps of Engineers to enhance a museum about the Army Corps of Engineers. It’s no. 27 on p. 24 of the report. The museum, which I sheepishly admit I had never heard of (I go to the East Side Metro East for one thing and one thing only), is dedicated to the Mississippi River and the Army Corps of Engineers, and is in East Alton, Ill. So, that’s $430,00 more in spending so that the Army Corp of Engineers can tell the public what a good job they do.

This is not to say that the Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t do a good job. Rather, they should just do a good job without feeling the need to tell us about it. If I lived in Louisiana in 1927 or 2005, though, I might feel differently.

The Missouri example is $180,000 for scientists at the University of Missouri to deal with the pressing problem of why rat sperm becomes less useful when it is thawed after freezing. (This is example no. 95 on p. 45.) Apparently, this is exactly the type of project for which the stimulus was designed.

All in all, it could have been worse for Missouri. Many of the projects in other states cost millions of dollars more, and most closely resemble a project akin to: dig hole; fill in hole; repeat. Example no. 10 is one of my favorites: $100,000 for “Town replaces new sidewalks with newer sidewalks that lead to ditch.”

No matter where this spending occurs, though, we all pay taxes for projects like this, and elected officials all (or almost all — there are a few exceptions) fight for local spending and spoils.

The post The U.S. Department of Great Rivers and Rat Sperm appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri is right where we usually are in things like this — in the middle of the pack. At least we are moving in the right direction, down from 24th to 26th. Sen. Claire McCaskill is probably the reason we are moving that direction, and hopefully we will continue to go further. It is interesting how three of the top four spots are held by entities other than the contiguous 48 states. And, yes, it is notable that there is a 51-spot difference between McCain and his erstwhile running mate — although, in Gov. Sarah Palin’s defense, this money comes from Washington D.C., not Juneau.

(Hat tip to Prime Buzz for the original link.)

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But, since I just praised Ms. McCaskill, I can call her out for her nonsensical statement in an interview that Reardon just played. She ripped President Bush (deservedly so) for building up such a large deficit, and then praised President Obama for his commitment to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, while just ignoring the fact that Obama’s proposed budget has quadrupled (at least tripled) the projected deficit for next year. Mr. Reardon is a lot of fun to listen to right now. …

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Now, first, let’s get our terms right: Are we talking about earmarking, or about pork spending? “Pork” is a result; “earmarking” is a process. Most pork spending is done via earmarking, but not all — and not all pork spending is bad. The reforms McCain and McCaskill are fighting for would force more pork spending (loosely defined as federal money that benefits local projects — some worthy, some not) to go through the full budget process rather than just being added on at the last minute to various bills, with little oversight or review.

I think these reforms are desperately needed. I wish Sen. McCaskill all the luck in the world in succeeding, and all the help I can give here in my tiny little corner of the blogosphere. As for my opinion of Sen. McCain, because I am also praising a Democrat in this post, I can probably say in the interest of full disclosure that I (on my own time, outside of work) was one of his honorary St. Louis County chairmen in the recent election — so that should tell you all you need to know.

I know that pork spending represents only a fraction of our budget issues, and I will admit that in areas of transportation and the military, not all pork spending is money poorly spent. In the big picture, it is dwarfed by the entitlement debts we face as we move toward a system in which one person with a job pays the Social Security and Medicare for 27 retired people (a slight exaggeration). But every dollar counts, and these reforms are still very important.

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Censorship occurs whenever any authority acts to suppress or inhibit free access or exchange of ideas disfavored by that authority. Not all censorship, however, is a problem. As Sarah pointed out, if parents want to prevent their children from encountering certain ideas, I fully support their right to do so. The problem, as with so many things, is when the government assumes the role of the parent. In a free society, it should never be the place of a government actor to decide what ideas are too unworthy or too “dangerous” for citizens to encounter. As the Supreme Court put it in Griswold v. Connecticut:

[T]he State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contract the spectrum of available knowledge. The right of freedom of speech and the press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read […] and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach […]

The U.S. Supreme Court has been called upon several times over the past few decades to address the question of to what extent government officials (or persistent community activists) can lawfully compel libraries to limit or terminate access to various materials. In 2003’s U.S. v. American Library Association, a divided court upheld legislation (sponsored by Senator John McCain), that required libraries receiving federal funds to install Internet filters on computers available to the public. The Court reasoned that because the law allowed librarians to temporarily disable the filters at a patron’s request, thereby giving the patron free access to whatever websites they hoped to view, the First Amendment’s prohibition on censorship was not violated. A good paper discussing the events leading to this case, and its implications, can be found here.

I disagreed with the court’s conclusion, of course, because the imposition of Internet filtering was an example of the government putting itself in place of the parent, saying, “We think these sites are naughty.” The appropriate solution would be for parents to take responsibility for keeping an eye on what their kids are reading or viewing. I’d be perfectly fine with libraries allowing parents to monitor their children’s check-out history. I’d even be fine with libraries allowing parents to bar their children from checking out books by certain authors. And I’m definitely fine with libraries making judgment calls about the best classification and shelving location for any given title — or whether to purchase a book in the first place. But a constitutional problem arises when librarian (or vocal special-interest groups) block someone’s access to an otherwise available book simply because they don’t like the book’s content.

The post Censorship appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Well this is pretty vague. But more importantly, it’s really silly.

The incentive for alternative fuel technology already exists, and the first person to develop and market a practical alternative to the standard combustion engine will be rewarded much more than a mere $300 million. McCain argues that this would amount to about one dollar per U.S. citizen, and is "a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency." I, personally, would be willing to pay a lot more than $1 for a practical alternative to fossil fuels. But no politician has the right to make that decision for me (or for any other taxpayer). The government shouldn’t be in the business of deciding good and bad business ideas. We already have a pretty good system in place to do just that.

The post Just Plain Old Silly appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Earmarks are line-item requirements in the federal budget that direct federal agencies to provide funding to specifically targeted organizations. This year, the average U.S. senator brought home more than $180 million in earmarked projects to their constituents ($28 million for representatives).

Earmarks are a huge problem at the federal level, because the benefits from such projects flow to small groups of interested individuals while the taxes used to pay for them are spread across the entire population as a whole. This diffusion of cost encourages the earmark practice, because it allows politicians to bring money to their constituents without putting the cost on them directly. The result is an ever-expanding federal budget, which this year passed the $3 trillion mark — or more than $10,000 per U.S. citizen.

Sadly, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly rejected the bill’s earmark restriction. From Bloomberg’s coverage of the vote:

The proposal ran into opposition from senators in both parties as lawmakers said it would merely shift authority to make spending decisions to anonymous bureaucrats in the executive branch.

Fortunately, six Democrats and a handful of Republicans did vote for the bill’s adoption, including Missouri’s own Claire McCaskill, who has been a strong opponent of congressional earmark proposals. And to the best of my knowledge, only McCaskill and Sen. John McCain (the bill’s sponsor) were true to their vote, refusing to direct federal dollars into earmarked projects in any of the legislative bills they sponsored last year. That’s much better than the (transparent) electioneering support by Sens. Clinton and Obama, who voted for the bill, yet oversaw $342 and $98 million in earmarked projects last year, respectively.

The 29 senators who voted to approve the legislation should be commended for their commitment to reducing governmental spending on pet projects. It’s a shame that more elected officials don’t share their commitment to fiscal discipline.

The post It Must Be a “Mc” Thing appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Clinton received 26 earmarks worth about $148.4 million total…Meanwhile, Levin’s tally far exceeded Clinton’s take: 45 earmarks worth about $210 million.

The only two senators who did not request projects: Missouri’s own Sen. Claire McCaskill and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Both of the senators  have sponsored earmark-disclosure language as part of the bill’s markup. Luckily there are some senators that understand the problems of pork-barrel spending and the drain it is on the U.S. treasury. Good job, Sen. McCaskill, for refusing to include more pork projects that take money out of the pocket of Missouri taxpayers.

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