Get 'monuments to me' ban written in stone
Austin American Statesman
EDITORIAL: SELF-INDULGENT EARMARKS
Monday, June 22, 2009
Let us sing the praises of — but not build a monument to — U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin.
McCaul has taken as his cause something you'd like as your cause. He has vowed to try to add to every appropriations measure an amendment to bar lawmakers from pushing federal budget earmarks for projects named for themselves.
"Whether these are wise uses of taxpayer dollars is not the question," says McCaul. "The problem is one of perception that these projects receive special treatment. This perception feeds the belief that members of Congress are arrogant and out of touch with the American people we represent."
Members of Congress? Arrogant? Out of touch? Just because they use your money to name stuff for themselves? Such cynicism.
McCaul's idea is gaining some across-the-aisle traction in Washington. Roll Call recently reported that House Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wisc., told Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., he is leaning toward banning what's become known as "monuments to me" in this year's spending bills.
This did not make Waters happy, she of the earmark request for the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center in her district.
There's a long, if not proud, tradition of members of Congress naming things for themselves. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va, is your all-time champion of this. It's hard to drive more than a few miles in West Virginia without seeing his name. More than 30 public works honor his service, including the Robert C. Byrd Hardwood Technologies Center, the Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing and a Robert C. Byrd high school, federal prison, freeway, highway, expressway, bridge, community center, courthouse, institute, industrial park and addition to the lodge at Wheeling's Oglebay Park.
Hell, let's scrap West Virginia and rename it Byrdland.
Texas is not short on public projects named for state officials. But in most cases, it has been an honor approved after the person left office (and, in some cases, after leaving this life). That's better than the congressional practice of naming things for yourself while you're still appearing on ballots.
For a while, bored Texas statehouse reporters talked about establishing a betting pool on who would be the first Texas official to serve time in a prison bearing his or her name.
Feel free to place your own bets on this. Here's the list of former (and still living) state officials who have prison units named for them: Ex-Govs. Dolph Briscoe and Bill Clements, ex-Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby, former state Sen. John Montford, ex-Speaker Gib Lewis, and former Reps. Barry Telford, Jim Rudd, Mark Stiles and Ernestine Glossbrenner.
Get 'monuments to me' ban written in stone