While we criticize using Federal funds for pork projects like the Woodstock Museum proposed by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) or for the three New Your City Univ. buildings to bear the name of Charlie Rangel and therefore supported by Charlie Rangel (D-NY), there are many other projects slipping through backed by others including Republicans and "Blue Dog" Democrats. This week the following was announced by Arkansas newspapers:
The House passed a bill Tuesday calling for an old mail route running through Arkansas and other states to be considered for the National Trails System. The House voted 326-79 for the bill, which asks the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study of the Butterfield Overland Trail.Of the three above, one is a conservative Republican and two are "Blue Dog" Democrats who express concern about the expanding federal deficit. While most of us would agree that these type project merit private funding, many others may consider, as does the Arkansas delegation, the above type projects worthy of public funding.
The Butterfield Trail was established in 1857, three years before the Pony Express, and totaled 2,812 miles, connecting St. Louis with San Francisco. The trail ran through Arkansas, Arizona, California, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. U.S. Reps. Marion Berry, Mike Ross and Vic Snyder, all D-Ark., co-sponsored the bill with Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark., and nine others. The bill includes 10 projects in all, including preserving Baxter County's Wolf House, the oldest public structure in Arkansas.
It is doubtful that many of today's members of Congress understand our forefather's position on Federalism, and is doubtful they will understand without term limits. However, there was once a Tennessee Congressman, Davy Crockett, who understood. Crockett served in the U.S. House from 1827 to 1831 and again from 1832 to 1835. According to a biography, "The Life of Colonel David Crockett," published in 1884 by Edward Ellis, Crockett once gave a speech on the House floor entitled, “Not Yours to Give.” The House was considering a bill for the relief of the widow of a distinguished naval officer. There was general agreement that this was a worthy cause, and everyone expected the bill to pass easily.
Crockett: Mr. Speaker -- I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. . . . Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much of our own money as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.When Crockett sat down, the bill was dead. He had shamed it to death. Furthermore, according to Ellis, not a single member of Congress offered to join him in contributing a week’s pay for the relief of poor widow, about whose plight so many of them had waxed eloquent when they thought they were going to be spending the taxpayers’ money rather than their own. Ellis goes on to say that Crockett told him in private after the speech:
There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men -- men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased -- a debt which could not be paid by money -- and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.A year after Crockett left Congress, he entered the history books when he died at the Alamo fighting for the freedom of Texas on March 6, 1836. I doubt that Congressman Davy Crockett would have agreed to use Federal money to fund historical buildings, trails, or projects associated with his name However, 171 years after Crockett's death, it is very evident that his wisdom no longer echos in the halls of Congress. Today congressional pork has taken on a life of its own. It has grown to a level that burdens future generations of American taxpayer with a form of enslaved indebtedness. An indebtedness that forever requires taxes to pay for past, present and future "worthy pork" projects. You decide, is your local project of "preserving history" or other "special request" deserving of expanding the Federal pie and worth burdening future generations?
Tags: Arkansas, Butterfield Trail, Congressional Pork, Davy Crockett, federal spending, Representative, US Congress To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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