My ten o’clock consultation this morning was booked for one Augustus Stanley Aubrey Beardsley IV, representing the Citizens’ United National Taxpayers Society for Opposing, Negating and Interdicting Congressional Earmarks. I noticed, as Gretchen showed him into my office, that he was toting a huge lawyer’s briefcase. And stuffed inside it was an enormous computer printout, with color-coded reference tabs protruding from it, making it appear, in general, sort of like a harlequin porcupine. How quaint.
“Call me Gus,” he cordially requested as he shook my hand and took a seat on the couch next to the window, plunking that monstrous briefcase next to him on my silk oriental rug.
“Well, Gus, I certainly hope you won’t mind telling me what you have in that briefcase,” I opened. “One doesn’t usually see hard copy that big anymore.“
A smile of deep, smug and arcane satisfaction spread over his face as he proudly proclaimed, “You’re definitely right about that, Mr. Collins…”
“Call me Tom, Gus,” I politely interrupted.
“… Tom. This,” he informed me as he wrestled his Brobdignagian sheaf free of its tight leather prison, “is what two and a half megabytes of text looks like when you print it out! In a font,” he puffed, like a huntsman laboring to control a particularly corpulent prize, “of course, that you can read without a [expletive] magnifying glass.”
“Extraordinary,” I remarked as he staggered over with the damn thing and piled it on my desk. “What’s in it?”
“Documentation,” Gus heaved and huffed as began unfolding his exotic curio for my inspection. “Comprehensive and detailed documentation, I might add, of every Congressional earmark in the current Omnibus Spending Bill. It’s all in there,” he declared in an important and rather stentorian tone, “Imagine a boondoggle, dream up a hornswoggle, concoct any mind boggle of waste, and by God Almighty, it’s in there! Look here, Tom, can you believe this? There’s $9,543,000 for something called Vitamins and Mineral Dietary Requirements in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
“Gee whiz,” I speculated, “that must add up to one hell of a lot of strong bones, healthy teeth and resilient immune systems for the children of… Oh, wait a minute. How many people live in North Dakota? Hmmm… let me check that out on the Internet here… yes, there it is… 642,200. So that’s… let’s see here… right – that’s about fifteen dollars of vitamins and minerals for every North Dakotan. I sure hope they get them.”
“And how about these?” Gus offered. “Here’s $833,000 for sorghum research in Arkansas and Texas. $469,000 to study the fungus that caused the Irish potato famine in Maryland. $866,000 to control stable flies in Nebraska, Tom! Flies, for Christ’s sake. You’d think nobody had ever heard of sticky paper and swatters, wouldn’t you?”
“Interesting,” I admitted. “Is there really funding in there for removing gang member’s tatoos?”
“You bet, Tom,” Gus assured me as he flipped to yet another colored tab. “Here it is – $200,000 to burn tats off gangsters in California, just like you heard on the news. And here’s $1,791,000 for swine odor and pig manure management research in Iowa. That one got a lot of press too, you know. What do you suppose swine odor research consists of?”
“That’s a very good question,” I replied, pausing for a moment to think about it. “Roll the pigs in baking soda, maybe?”
“Could be,” Gus muttered in disgust. “My gut feeling is, after spending $1,791,000 of the taxpayers’ money, the researchers will publish a paper in some academic agronomy journal which presents the conclusion that pigs are stinky, pig manure is stinkier and more research is needed.”
“Absolutely,” I concurred. “The only two totally certain things in science are the Second Law of Thermodynamics and that More Research Will Be Needed.”
“Oh, look,” Gus burbled, pointing at another entry marked by the same fuschia-colored tab – “here’s another $1,088,000 for an Animal Waste Management Research Laboratory in Kentucky.”
“Iowa,” I jested, holding my hands out to mimic the pans of a classical Greek balance, “and Kentucky – in a towering scientific battle over what do to do with what their cows and pigs don’t do – and do do…”
“Speaking of science in general,” Gus chimed in, “how about this one? Here’s $5,024,000 for Sugar Beet/Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratories in Michigan.”
“I had no idea,” I confessed, “that sugar beets got cancer.”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Gus responded, “we learn something new every day here in Washington, don’t we? Look, here’s $1,426,000 for something called ‘phytoestrogen research’ in Louisiana!”
“I also had no idea,” I reluctantly revealed, “that plants menstruate. Do you suppose some of them get PMS?”
“The pansies,” Gus said. “I bet they do – and unless they get fertilized with some chocolate, they’ll scratch your eyes out. How about this – $870,000 to relocate red wolf breeding facilities in North Carolina and Washington state.”
“Could it be,” I mused, “that the neighbors of the current red wolf breeding facilities have been complaining about all that howling every time the moon comes up?”
“Or maybe,” Gus tossed out, “they finally realized that they were living next to a federal government facility that breeds wolves.”
“People do,” I agreed, “wise up eventually.”
“And how about this?” Gus inquired. “Here’s $2,192,000 going to the Center for Grape Genetics in New York.”
“Great,” I exulted, “now they can come up with a way to mutate Merlot back into something that’s fashionable to drink.”
“But only $819,000,” Gus observed, “to sequence the catfish genome in Alabama.”
“That’s nowhere near enough,” I sarcastically complained. “Don’t people realize that once we have sequenced the catfish genome, we can cure all its diseases?”
“And here,” Gus chuckled, “is $2,192,000 for the University of Toledo Greenhouse and Hydroponic Research Complex in Ohio.”
“Sure, dude,” I drawled, “like we don’t know what a bunch of college kids will do with a two million dollar hydroponic greenhouse.”
“Oh, here’s a good one,” Gus announced, “$750,000 for something called the ‘Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial!”
“A paltry sum,” I jibed, “to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Hudson’s and Champlain’s seminal explorations of upstate New York’s scenic waterways; and notice how those thrifty Yankees manage to throw in a celebration of the 200th anniversary of Fulton’s steamboat at no extra charge.”
“And,” Gus japed, “it’s a cinch black Americans everywhere would agree that spending $100,000 to renovate Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a fantastic idea.”
“Speaking,” I quipped, “both as someone who is an uncle and also named ‘Tom,’ even though I’m not black, I can’t help but think that they would.”
“And regardless if they did or not,” Gus pointed out, “I’m sure they’d be glad to know that historic bastion of civil rights, the state of Virginia, is getting half a million dollars to build a national monument to Booker T. Washington.”
“It’s high time,” I vouched, “that he got one, too.”
“And who,” Gus sarcastically implored, “could fail to see the dire necessity for prevention of methamphetamine production in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri, to be achieved for a mere $492,000?”
“Well, everybody knows,” I dryly stated, “that Mark Twain National Forest is rife with redneck meth labs, so thick you can’t spit without hitting one. Something’s got to be done, right?”
“Here’s $623,000 going to Louisiana,” Gus let me know, “to figure out why everyone in New Orleans is so fat.”
“I’m afraid,” I acidly lamented, “that it’s going to take way more money than that to solve such an obviously impenetrable mystery. Why, I bet $623,000 doesn’t get them much past beignets, muffalettas, étouffée, crawfish boil, Creole barbecue, red beans and rice.”
“$1,158,000,” Gus noted, “for cormorant control in Michigan, Mississippi, Vermont and New York.”
“Folks just have no idea,” I reflected, “how serious it is when cormorants get out of control.”
“If you think out-of-control cormorants are bad,” Gus challenged, “you’ve never seen a Mormon cricket on a bad day! Here’s $1,308,000 to deal with them in Utah and Kansas.”
“What makes Mormon crickets such a big problem?” I wondered.
“Are you kidding?” Gus queried. “For starters, every male Mormon cricket has at least eight wives! And what’s this? ‘Waiter, there’s a fly in my martini!’”
“’Keep your voice down!’” I added, “’If they hear you saying that, everybody will want one!’”
“That must be why,” Gus surmised, “there’s $218,000 for olive fly detection.” He selected a purple tab at random, laboriously moving through the document, which by now had become six large stacks, spread across my desk, all connected by pages of perforated green bar paper, which he navigated by flipping part of the stack above the selected tab onto an adjacent one. “Now here’s a beauty,” he chortled, “$2,137,500 for the ‘LifeSTARTS Youth & Family Services, the Capital Area Asset Building Corporation, and the National Center for Fathering to administer Marriage Development Accounts in the District of Columbia.’ What do you suppose a ‘marriage development account’ is?”
“It sounds,” I speculated, “like something a clever District of Columbia official would invent to facilitate the embezzlement of $2,137,500.”
“Speaking of big-time swindles,” Gus said as he opened a stack to a region of pea-green tabs, “here’s a total of $15,188,125 in seventeen states to pay for something called ‘alternative analysis.’ What the hell is that, anyway?”
“Alternative analysis,” I explained, “is a technique widely used by the federal government to compare the costs and benefits of various projected outcomes.”
“What for?”
“Why, to save money, of course,” I responded in a matter-of-fact tone. “Everybody in Washington knows that, in order to save a million dollars doing something, you have to spend at least half a million proving that what you’re doing is the most frugal option.”
Gus mockingly slapped his head. “D’oh! Yeah, how come I couldn’t see that? I feel so dumb! How about this one,” he offered, flipping to a page marked with a light blue tab, “$24,291,000 for the National Writing Project in California.”
“I don’t think that will be enough,” I worried. “It will probably take ten times that much to bring back writing in California, now that it’s been completely replaced by text messaging.”
“Well, maybe,” Gus observed, “but it looks like California gets another $25,095,000 for civics education.”
“Unless they can figure out a way to teach the course using iPods and video cell phones,” I sighed, “they’re going to be wasting their money.”
“$2,000,000 for textile research,” Gus murmured, “in… oh, surprise, surprise – North Carolina.”
“Maybe,” I posited, “they can determine, once and for all, whether microfibers are a fad or not.”
“Now here’s one,” Gus mentioned, “that I wanted to ask you about. There’s a $5,600,000 earmark attributed to the state of Virginia in here for something called ‘the JASON project.’ Any idea what that is?”
“It’s a program run by the National Geographic Society,” I replied.
“Oh, well, yes, by all means,” Gus sneered, “we have to keep National Geographic going, don’t we? I mean, if National Geographic collapsed, what would people read in their doctors’ waiting rooms? Look – here’s $5,000,000 going to Mississippi ‘to discover new products from the sea.’”
“Like the sweet and succulent pork-barrel fish, perhaps?”
“Could be,” Gus agreed. “Of course, if they don’t discover any new products in the sea, it’s not like they guaranteed a return on the five million bucks, is it?”
“Not at all,” I concurred. “You can’t expect risky research projects to produce wealth one hundred percent of the time, and, of course, that’s just what we need these days – more risky research projects that may or may not be worth five million bucks.”
“How about this one,” Gus asked, pointing at the earmark line item. “The Warren County, New Jersey Police Department is getting $1,250,000 for a ‘radio upgrade.’”
“You never know,” I shrugged, “maybe they’ve never had radios before.”
“And maybe there are police departments in fifteen states who never heard of methamphetamine before, too,” Gus grumbled, “because earmarks for local fuzz to bust the meth trade there total $35,710,000. I wonder what that works out to on a per-cop basis?”
“Enough to score quite a bit of meth, no doubt,” I replied.
“And here’s $1,370,000 for the Girl Scouts of America,” Gus commented.
“The recession must have really clobbered their cookie sales,” I concluded.
“Here’s $300,000,” Gus complained, “to teach Massachusetts juvenile delinquents Shakespeare.”
“That should certainly give lines like ‘the unkindest cut of all’ an entirely new slant,” I extrapolated.
“$2,000,000 to promote appreciation of astronomy in Hawaii,” Gus whispered thoughtfully. “Why not $2,000,000 to promote appreciation of astronomy in, say, Kansas for instance?”
“Last time I checked, the citizens of Kansas believe God created the universe with the Earth at the center and then stuck the stars on the outermost Crystal Sphere.”
“Oh,” Gus nodded, “right – so they don’t believe in astronomy, but Hawaiians do.”
“For two million bucks, I assume they must be crazy about it.”
“How about this, then,” Gus prompted, “$1,800,000 for something called ‘bio-nano-info’ research in California.”
“That’s obviously first prize in the Government Science Buzz Word Competition.”
“No,” Gus disagreed. “That’s got to be the first runner-up, because here’s $4,757,500 for something called ‘nanoscale energy’ in North Dakota.”
“Clever folks, those North Dakotans.”
“No kidding – another $3,000,000 dollars goes there to enhance public access to satellite images.”
“Just don’t mention Google Earth.”
“And here’s $83,256,000 to provide access and fishing platforms on the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington for Native Americans in accordance with the River Treaty of 1961.”
“At those prices, if they don’t at least beat out a Minnesota ice fishing hut on creature comforts, I think somebody ought to investigate.”
“$200,000 to rehabilitate king crabs in Alaska,” Gus declared, now waving his arms in excitement, “$400,000 for horseshoe crabs in Virginia; $267,000 to plant oak trees in Georgia; $466,000 for something called the ‘Ohio-Israel Agricultural Initiative,’; $935,000 for egg shell pasteurization; $381,000 for the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Symphony Orchestra; $1,500,000 for sea lion conservation in Alaska; $238,000 to Hawaii for support of the Polynesian Voyaging Society; $1,000,000 to count red snappers in Florida; $5,400,000 to restore oyster habitats in Maryland, Virginia and Alabama; $951,500 for Nevada to evaluate plans for a ‘sustainable Las Vegas; $190,000 to Wyoming for a Buffalo Bill Historical Center…” Looking down at the printout, Gus drew his face up in a puzzled scowl. “What do you suppose a ‘diaper bank’ is, Tom?”
“Not being a family man, I can only imagine.”
“Well, whatever it is, Connecticut is getting $133,000 for one.”
“Good Lord, Gus,” I exclaimed, “it seems like we could do this forever! Just how many earmarks are there in the Omnibus Spending Bill?”
“As of this morning…” Gus knit his brow in concentration, “there are… nine thousand two hundred and eighty five of them.”
“And what do they add up to?”
Gus drew a deep breath. “$12,809,091,887.”
“And how big,” I pressed on, “is the Omnibus Spending Bill?”
“Last I heard,” Gus related, “it was somewhat north of $400 billion, say, $410 billion or thereabouts.”
“So,” I pointed out, “even if your organization managed to somehow miraculously eliminate every single earmark from this bill, it would save the taxpayers maybe three percent of the total expenditure. But you and I both know that the average person will withdraw eighty dollars from an ATM and pay as much as $2.50, or about three percent, just to get it.”
“Twelve billion dollars,” Gus protested, “is still an awful lot of money!”
“Well,” I slowly enunciated, “yes… and no. It’s certainly a lot of money for one person to imagine having all to themselves, and if it were all spent in one place on a single, particular thing, no doubt that thing would be very impressive – like a particle accelerator, for instance. But compared to the enormous amounts the federal government spends – in this case more than four hundred billion dollars, in a bill that’s just a temporary stopgap measure meant to keep the government running and not even a real annual federal appropriation bill, at that – twelve billion dollars is just a drop in the bucket. The real truth of the matter is, earmarks are just a distraction, like the accomplice who diverts your attention while the pickpocket takes your wallet.”
Gus gave me a long and skeptical stare. “If what you say is true, then what’s the real problem, and what’s the real solution?”
“The real problem,” I advised, “is the United States Civil Service. Every five days, they waste more money than an entire year of Congressional earmarks. They are the ones in control of the other 97 to 99 percent of federal spending, and they’ve elevated screwing up to such a level that how much screwing up a civil servant manages to do currently serves as the basis for their promotions and salary increases.”
Gus’ stare went from skeptic to dumbfounded. “Really? How can we put a stop to that?”
“First of all,” I suggested, “the government could require that its own employees obey the law.”
“You mean to say,” Gus incredulously implored, “that they don’t?”
“As a matter of fact,” I informed him, “hardly ever.”
“How come,” Gus demanded, “nothing has been done about this outrageous situation?”
“Because the Justice Department is responsible for arresting and prosecuting members of the United States Civil Service who break the law.”
“And?” Gus’ face bore a clearly expectant and totally mystified expression.
“And the people at the Justice Department are in the United States Civil Service, too.”
“Oh.” A moment passed as Gus contemplated his enormous printout of congressional earmarks. “I see.” Gus looked down at the floor, shuddered slightly, gazed out the window for a minute, then turned to address me. “So until somebody does something about the Civil Service, all us crusading activists protesting congressional earmarks are just gnats biting a huge, insatiable, bestial, bloody, gore-covered monster, trying to make it stop eating bushel baskets of babies, puppies, kittens and snowy white newborn harp seals?”
“Essentially.”
Gus dejectedly stuffed his huge earmark printout back into his oversized attorney’s briefcase, then slowly and sadly made his way toward the door. “Thanks. I’ll have the Administration Department cut you a check before COB today.”
“Don’t bother,” I told him, “I can’t accept a fee for this consultation.”
Gus halted, drawing up just shy of the door knob. “All right,” he murmured. “But why?”
“Because,” I explained, “it would be like charging Don Quixote for directions to the nearest windmill.”