Relief from Congress

It’s been six months since Hurricane Mitch buried Central America in mud. Since the United States pledged to help with the digging out. Since members of Congress began that noble promise with expensive favors for their home-state special interests.

Stuffing emergency spending bills with non-emergency pork is a long-standing legislative tradition; no doubt the Roman Senate larded up its post-Vesuvius Pompeii relief package with a bailout of the struggling chariot industry. But this Congress has gone too far.

Nearly $1 billion in emergency humanitarian aid to help rebuild vast areas of Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala is being held up by irrelevant riders. As a result, disease and famine are on the rampage, and the United States, once hailed as savior, now is viewed as skinflint. Even worse, Congress’ hunger for local goodies now is threatening this country’s own men and women in uniform — the latest hostage of greed is a multi-billion-dollar appropriation to support America’s role in the NATO action against Yugoslavia.

And for what? Here’s just a taste from the trough: a $1-billion guaranteed loan program for distressed steel companies (especially the ones in Sen. Robert Byrd’s West Virginia); a $500-million loan program for New Mexico oil and gas interests, courtesy Sen. Pete Domenici; thanks to Sen. Slade Gorton, Washington mining companies will get a break on waste disposal; Sen. Richard Shelby is using the misery caused by the most destructive hurricane in recent history and the barbarism of Slobodan Milosevic to keep the Alabama sturgeon from an endangered-species listing. Not to mention the help Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback want to give Kansas gas producers who have been fined more than $200 million for overcharging customers.

It’s business as usual, but seasoned Congress watchers probably have noticed a twist. It’s usually the House that goes hog wild with disaster-relief riders and the more thoughtful Senate that pares the waste down to a few piddling billion. This time, the roles are reversed, with the Senate playing the drunken sailor and the House the temperance crusader.

Why is anyone’s guess, although many observers credit the House’s restraint to the quiet, practical and even-handed leadership of Speaker Dennis Hastert, a refreshing change from the last several speakers. The prodigal Senate may be the offspring of that chamber’s chronically bloated ego and its new, post-impeachment partisanship.

With congressional approval in doubt and a presidential veto promised for any bill loaded with pork, Hastert, with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott in tow, is ordering members to shed the riders. That directive had a modest effect. The point was made that there is a certain irony, if not hypocrisy, in waging war against an anti-democratic regime and holding up funds to pay for it with such anti-democratic tactics. A few more riders fell by the wayside.

Now, the trump card: a late addition to the Central America/Kosovo spending package is $372 million in aid for the tornado victims in Oklahoma and Kansas. The bill is considerably leaner, but not totally lean. Sens. Roberts and Brownback are still weighing the needs of fellow Kansans blown out of their homes with those who bilked their gas customers. Sen. Byrd still sees no difference between a steel mill and an ethnic Albanian refugee. There’s never a volcano around when you need one.