It is easy for governments to spend money. Spending it effectively is harder. That was apparent Monday when Thomas Kean, the former governor of New Jersey who headed the Sept. 11 commission, went after homeland defense spending to date.
The commission, now reconstituted with private support, issued a report sharply critical of the Bush administration and Congress for their handling of homeland security appropriations.
The commission’s main complaint is that most of the money designated to improve security at state and local levels is divvied up in a formulaic pork-barrel process. There’s no element of setting priorities in the process. Some states ended up buying radios for municipal garbage trucks or flak jackets for police dogs with their federal anti-terrorism funds.
The challenge is far broader than this specific instance, although the stakes may be lower in other cases. It is just as hard to decide where federal or state highway dollars go.
One could delegate this task to a set of impartial experts. A panel of engineers could rank all possible road projects in order of payoff relative to cost. If improving Interstate 94 west of Milwaukee does more for society than spending the same amount on I-70 at Grand Junction, then improve I-94.
But this is problematic in a democracy that acts through congressional delegations from 50 states. States that feel short-changed inevitably challenge any such ranking.
Devising some sort of formula that doles out funds on the basis of population, miles of road or where fuel actually is purchased reduces conflicts, but applies money less effectively. Moreover, elected officials are always tempted to bypass the formula and finance special projects. That is how we got more than 6,000 earmarks in this year’s transportation bill including Alaska’s infamous $200 million bridge to nowhere.
We essentially used such a formula for anti-terrorism appropriations. That is precisely what the 9/11 commission criticized. Making certain every state gets some formulaic share of the pot ensures that we remain more vulnerable to terrorism than if we could identify risks more objectively.
The administration and Congress claim they want to change from a pork-barrel formula to a risk-based system. But the proposed change is part of a larger renewal of the USA Patriot act that is snarled in disputes between the Senate and House. If there’s agreement that adopting a risk-assessment approach is prudent, why not separate that out and approve it? Unfortunately, legislative experience shows that it is often necessary to keep several questions bundled together to force the compromises necessary for resolving controversies. Thus, effectiveness of defense spending gets bogged down in other issues.
Spending money effectively in a democracy depends on the willingness of key legislators to reach beyond short-term or geographical considerations. They generally did that during important wars in the 20th century, but it seems difficult now.
© 2005 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.