April 26, 2006, 11:22 a.m.
Bridge to November

The inability of a handful of House Republicans to stomach a long-overdue belt-tightening reform is threatening to prevent the House from passing a budget resolution for the first time since 1974. Fortunately for fiscal conservatives, a pork-laden spending bill has come along just in time to remind the public why this particular reform is so desperately needed.

On Tuesday, President Bush threatened to veto an emergency spending bill for Iraq and Katrina if it exceeds $92.2 billion. Bush, who has yet to use his veto pen, made the threat after conservatives highlighted some of the outrageous line items the Senate had added to its version of the bill, which currently totals $106.5 billion and could go even higher.

Funding our troops in Iraq is of course crucial. But some opportunistic senators have taken advantage of the bill's must-pass nature to add spending on their pet projects — for example, Sens. Thad Cochran and Trent Lott of Mississippi slipped in $700 million to move a rail line that just underwent a $250 million repair. Cochran and Lott say the money is needed to move the tracks out of the path of future hurricanes, but other senators — like Oklahoma's Tom Coburn — argue that the real reason is to clear the way for waterfront development. (Notably, the operators of the rail line are satisfied with its current location.) Cochran and Lott's proposal has already acquired the apt sobriquet "Railroad to Nowhere."

That's not all. The Heritage Foundation discovered $4 billion for extra farm subsidies and $1.1 billion for private fisheries. And don't forget the $15 million for a "seafood-promotion strategy" as reported by the New York Times.

We could go on, but you get the idea. One look at this pork-fest should be enough to persuade anyone of the importance of the emergency-spending reform conservatives persuaded the House leadership to include as part of this year's budget resolution. The reform would require Congress to set aside, in each year's budget, a "rainy day fund" for emergencies; emergency spending in excess of that fund would have to go to the House Budget Committee for a vote.

The powerful Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee objected to this reform because it would mean sharing emergency-spending power with the Budget Committee. Led by House Appropriations Committee chairman Jerry Lewis, these Republicans informed the House leadership that they would not vote for any budget resolution "that would REQUIRE the Budget Committee to approve non-defense related emergency spending in excess of the amount stated within the Budget Resolution." In other words, they refused to give up their power to spend money off the official books.

Because of their objections, the budget process is now at a standstill. House conservatives won't budge on their demands — they say that they have compromised too much over the past five years as spending has skyrocketed. And the House leadership is committed to passing a budget resolution — to fail would give ammunition to Democrats who say that Republicans can't overcome their differences and govern. The question is: How hard are House speaker Dennis Hastert and majority leader John Boehner willing to lean on Lewis and his fellow spendthrifts? If they can't break through the opposition to this common-sense reform — and soon — every bridge or railroad to nowhere is going to make conservatives wonder why they should bother going to the polls in November.