Watching the watchdog

Watchdog groups are an important force in American politics. Given the tendency of Congress for swapping favors, it is good to have non-partisan citizen organizations keeping an eye on all the log-rolling, back scratching and quid pro quoing that ends up costing taxpayers a fortune.

Citizens Against Government Waste is one of the most experienced and respected of the watchdogs. Founded in 1984 by the late industrialist J. Peter Grace and the feisty columnist Jack Anderson, CAGW is the legacy of President Reagan’s privately funded Grace Commission, which he directed to “work like tireless bloodhounds to root out government efficiency and waste.” CAGW now publishes an annual “Pig Book” of pork-barrel spending and, although the year-after-year porcine puns and plays on words can get tiresome, the group itself remains tireless.

Its latest, “Pig Book 2001: A Pork Odyssey” contains much to alarm the thoughtful and frugal taxpayer. It also, unfortunately, continues the group’s recent tendency to muddle truly wasteful spending with legitimate, even necessary, spending. This relentless search for subjects to ridicule can have unintended consequence of fostering public cynicism.

At the risk of appearing hopelessly provincial, consider the $23 million worth of Maine projects CAGW labeled as pork, that is, federal funds being spent on items of no federal interest. For example, CAGW’s pork list for Maine includes $1.5 million for salmon restoration and $1 million for a sewer project in Corinna. The first, of course, is to meet demands of the federal Endangered Species Act listing of Atlantic Salmon, the second to reach compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. Either this $2.5 million, more than 10 percent of CAGW’s Maine total, does not belong in the Pig Book or CAGW believes unfunded federal mandates are good things.

Is $2 million for composite wood research at the University of Maine pork or a federal investment in an important technology in which the state and the private sector already have invested and that is delivering a handsome return on investment, including in the form of taxes? There is roughly $3 million for several job retraining projects in Northern Maine – in a rapidly changing global economy, is it not wise for government at all levels to help displaced workers become retrained workers, does CAGW prefer welfare? Is $550,000 for an elder care facility on Vinalhaven government waste or moral obligation?

CAGW hedges by stating, in the report’s small print, that it is not assessing the value of the projects cited, but merely lists those that were added to spending packages by a member of Congress from the affected state. After the obvious question of who will advocate for Vinalhaven’s elderly if not the Maine delegation, the next question should be why, then, does CAGW feel it necessary to issue press releases screaming about the “spending cult” that has Congress “worshipping a the false altar of pork.” Somehow, an image of a watchdog howling just to hear its own voice comes to mind.