Don’t you wish you had a rich and kindly old
uncle whose chief mission in life was to give things to you? Well, if you
lived in Alaska, bucko, you’d have a generous relative, and
you’d call him Uncle Ted, as everyone else does.
This year, Uncle Ted has given $645 million worth of
stuff to the good people of Alaska, nearly $600 per person. But that
becomes less of a heartwarming story when you realize that Uncle Ted is not
using his money for these gifts — he’s using yours.
He’s Ted Stevens, the Republican chairman of the
U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, and he’s the most prodigious
producer of political pork in our nation’s capital. Uncle Ted
recently set a new gold standard in the world of porkdom by delivering $1.5
million in federal funds to the city of Anchorage for, of all things, a bus
stop.
Not for a whole system of bus stops, mind you, but
$1.5 million for one solitary space in which to sit and wait for your bus
to come. It’s to be built outside of Anchorage’s museum of
history and art, and, in all fairness, it will be a doozie. Although it
will look like your ordinary, three-sided, glass-and-steel structure, the
city’s director of transportation plans a heated sidewalk to keep the
space free of snow and ice and also has electronic signs in mind. “It
is going to be a showpiece stop,” he says.
The transportation director promises to spend only
what it actually takes to build the showpiece, even if it’s less than
$1.5 million.
That’s not the proper attitude: I suggest that
the city add to the tourist experience by erecting a gold statue of Uncle
Ted carrying a pig under each arm.
This article appears in Jun 23-29, 2005.
