While most of us were busy getting ready to leave for winter break (or were already on our respective ways home) Congress was busy drafting last-minute legislation to fund the government for another nine months. The problem with this, as with many things in Washington, was that many members of Congress could not agree on what to buy with the taxpayers’ hard-earned money. The issues were so divisive that, none of the proposed budgets could get the majority they needed to pass.
With the clock running out, leadership in Congress faced a dilemma. None of their proposed agreements would garner enough votes. Even attempts to reach across the aisle and compromise on a few points here and there didn’t get enough Democratic support to pass it with a bipartisan coalition. With the national purse in hand, Congress was standing at the register unable to decide on what to buy.
The solution that was ultimately reached was actually pretty obvious: since we have the money out anyways, why not just buy the votes we need to get this bill passed? While I doubt any cash actually changed hands in the hallways and elevators of Congress, bribes most certainly occurred. They were paid for by taxpayers in the form of pork.
Pork like the $16.7 million for the “East-West Center for Technical and Cultural Interchange between East and West in the State of Hawaii." Why on earth is a cultural research program for Hawaiian students so important that taxpayers from all across the country should fund it? The only reason that I can think of is that the Congressional leadership needed votes to pass the bill and knew that a certain congressmen would certainly like the bill better if it would mean he or she could get a bunch of pork for their district.
My guess is that the Congressman they had in mind was Senator Brian Schatz, who was the only one from his entire state that voted for the bill. Schatz says on his website that, “one of my top priorities as a United States Senator has been to ensure that the [East-West] Center receives funding."
$16.7 million in a $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill is a drop in the bucket, but this is just one example of how Congressional leadership bought votes for this bill using taxpayer money. The bill overall has more pork than a barbecue festival and as such has received the nickname “Cromnipork."
This isn’t "House of Cards," it's real life. We should expect more from our elected officials than to buy and sell votes from one another using our money. Unfortunately I expect they will continue to get away with it unless we as a populace become more politically informed and hold them accountable.