Editorial: Government’s Budget Lyrics Change But Tune Stays The Same

As reported by Capitol Currents earlier this month, lawmakers have applauded the Bush administration’s effort to prioritize water project funding and said “it’s a good place to start,” but added that it [the effort] “has certain limitations that present some problems to us.” (Capitol Currents is a publication of Waterways Council, Inc.)

Applauding were members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. While several members expressed frustration with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for “project delays and impediments,” Chairman David L. Hobson chided the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Currents. He scolded the Corps for, among other things, not completing its five-year plan in time for the hearing.

The civil works program “needs to be more than a random assortment of projects,” Hobson said. He charged that the Corps moves funds around, and he doesn’t approve of that.

What Hobson said next is, to us at least, perplexing: “The Corps needs to step up to the plate, take some initiative, and articulate a bold and clear long-range development plan…as a guide for future Corps and congressional budget decisions.” He said, “We need to have a vision of where the Corps is going…beyond a one-year budget.”

Hobson is sure right about that. Some in government lack vision. The Corps already knows what needs to be done. There is not enough governmental support for doing it. (This hearing was among the first. Already members of Congress have submitted more than 400 water project requests.)

For decades the Corps has operated with an insufficient budget. The OMB and most administrations for three decades or more have not been what we would consider friendly to the agency or its civil works mission. The Corps has had to hold its program together with duct tape, while millions of dollars have been siphoned off for environmental programs, while projects get put on hold. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee believes that the Corps’ 2006 budget should be $8.3 billion, an amount that would allow it to achieve its full capability.

Too many government overseers have swallowed the “green” pill and, because of their actions, the entire country is beginning to choke on environmental overspending. As now visualized, the Corps’ proposal for the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers is a 15-year investment plan that would include $2.03 billion for navigation enhancements and $1.56 billion for ecosystem enhancements. There was a time when people complained about environmental enhancements taking 30 percent of project costs. That figure [for the Mississippi/Illinois proposal] has jumped to more than 40 percent. (There is no money in the FY 2006 budget request for Upper Mississippi and Illinois river modernization.)

Is the administration throwing up a smoke screen? The implication is that if the Corps plays its cards right, money will one day appear. But it will not because too many have no vision.

Only lip service is paid to the value of water transportation. For who would want to admit publicly that they did not place value on its importance? But the General Accounting Office knows its value. It has reported that water transportation contributes annually $15 billion or more in customs fees to the U.S. Treasury, with the Corps receiving a mere $4- $5 billion a year in return to do a job that cannot be done with that cheesy sum.

The Maritime Administration knows its value. MarAd has a long record of expressing support for inland waterways and the barge and towing industry. The agency promotes the low cost of water transportation on the one hand and its environmental friendliness on the other. Safety for those who travel the interstates could even be improved. Making visions come true, however, costs money, and the administration says there isn’t enough.

The cost of fighting terrorism cannot be calculated successfully at this point, but obviously we’re talking hundreds of billions. The amount to fund the Department of Homeland Security is astronomical. The Coast Guard budget alone has been boosted exponentially, and the agency has just handed Congress a wish list for programs and hardware totaling just under $1 billion. A billion here, a billion there, before long, we’re talking big money. We know these expenditures are important.

But we cannot lose sight of maintaining important infrastructure just because we are at war with terrorists. We could stop funding programs that have a history of failure. Allowing our water transportation system to disintegrate and putting forth the lame argument that there is no money to fix it is a sham. Neglecting the system results in myriad negative economic impacts. We are now feeling those impacts throughout the river system.

We were told that Congress is considering $270 billion to upgrade our interstate highway system. Just several billion would clear up the Corps’ inland waterways backlog.

Isn’t something dangerously out of kilter here?

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