Congressional reform makes gridlock the norm

Ask Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett about prospects for federal funding to help pay for the city's flood protection system, and he'll tell you the city is stuck in 'AA.”

'And I don't mean Alcoholics Anonymous,” Corbett said. 'I mean authorized but not appropriated. And until we get some dollars from them, we're going to have to reach deeper into our local pocket, or do we approach the state?”

I asked the mayor about federal funding after Tuesday's city council meeting, where members gave the go ahead to design a new Eighth Avenue bridge over the Cedar River. The new bridge will be built much higher than the current span and will cross over the flood protection system, leaving a route open in case the Cedar ever decides to reprise its impression of the Mississippi.

The new bridge is going to cost more money, although it also saves some money by eliminating the need for gates on Eighth Avenue. Other changes to the flood control plan approved Tuesday also save some bucks, such as building a cheaper levee instead of removable flood walls near the Czech Village.

But as time passes, the system is becoming more expensive. The city has secured 20 years of state funding. But the bucks from Washington, D.C. that had appeared to be such a sure thing are not on the way, despite congressional authorization. The authorization is willing, but the bureaucracy controls the funding.

And as the cost of the project increases, the cost-benefit ratio that prompted the feds to approve funding for east bank protection is shifting. At some point, the cost will exceed what the government sees as the system's benefit. That's game over.

'I'm not one to throw the towel in on what the federal government has or hasn't done. But the reality is it's been eight years going on nine,” Corbett said.

Cedar Rapids' waiting game is due in no small part to congressional 'reforms,” meant to end pork barrel spending.

Back in 2010, the U.S. House banned earmarks, or specific slices of spending secured by members of Congress to fund projects back home or elsewhere. Authorizations that came with money. The U.S. Senate is operating under an earmark moratorium.

Do-gooders crusaded to eliminate earmarks, which they dubbed pork barrel spending. And there were abuses. Alaska's 'bridge to nowhere” is an infamous example. Each year, budget watchdogs came out with lists of questionable projects.

Bashing earmarks was politically popular. And while growth in massive entitlement programs was the real, complex story behind our budget problems, earmarks received outsized attention. They actually represented a very small percentage of the budget. But who can resist making hay of $50 million for a rainforest in Iowa?

Eager to make themselves look like fiscal heroes, our elected leaders banned themselves from the pork buffet. Trouble is, they also could no longer gain funding for worthwhile projects, like protecting a state's second largest city from flooding.

'For us, when you look at places like Grand Forks that have completed their system, they did that in a time when earmarks prevailed in Congress,” Corbett said. 'For us, having the earmark ban in 2010, when we had both senators, Grassley and Harkin, high in seniority, I think that really hurt Cedar Rapids.”

It also hurt Congress' ability to get things done. Discarding members' ability to gain funding for a local project meant there's very little reason for them to climb out of deep partisan trenches and strike deals on spending bills and other issues. The grease that lubricated the gears of Congress, it turns out, was pork fat. But, hey, at least banning earmarks put the federal government well on its way to fiscal health. Yeah, not so much.

Surely, only big spending liberals feel this way. Nope.

'What we've done is scrap what for 200 years was used to get things done,” former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum told Iowa delegates gathered for last month's Republican National Convention. The man who won Iowa's 2012 Republican presidential caucuses, after some delay, is hardly a tax-and-spend liberal.

Santorum points out another problem. Banning earmarks meant handing the executive branch considerable power to decide how congressional appropriations are, or are not, spent. Congress authorizes, but now bureaucrats appropriate.

'If you're looking for something that's going to fundamentally help get our constitutional republic back, we have to put power back in Congress,” Santorum said.

I'd settle for getting back a Congress that functions, one that can do more than call news conferences, hold fundraisers and repeal Obamacare. Republicans say they want to curb executive authority. Democrats could become very interested, too, if a cruel November yields a Trumpian triumph.

Surely there's an earmarking process that could be constructed on common ground somewhere between unbridled abandon and total prohibition. But I suppose this is too much to ask for, because it would take some actual political courage to change the rules. Courage caught the last train for the coast, along with comity and civility.

So Cedar Rapids walls and levees will remain authorized but not appropriated. And Congress is the last place you'd look these days for someone who can help build a bridge.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com