By Steve Byas

With the recent campaign waged by Sen. John McCain for president (I know that is a stretch to say that McCain waged a campaign), and the high profile on the issue by our own Sen. Tom Coburn, the issue of congressional earmarks is well known in Oklahoma. Most conservatives oppose congressional earmarks.

But I contend that congressional earmarks are symptomatic of a deeper problem.

To illustrate my point, let us look at some earmark requests made by our own congressional delegation.

Since Cong. John Sullivan represents the first congressional district in the Tulsa area, I will examine some of his requests first. Sullivan requested $3 million for bridge work on I-244 over the Arkansas River. Now, I do not know if this is a wise use of federal money, or an excessive use of federal money, but the use of federal funds for an interstate highway is certainly constitutional. However, Sullivan also asked for $1.6 million for campus police in the Tulsa Public School system. Again, I don't have an opinion as to the wisdom of the use of this money for this purpose.

Using federal funds for local police is unconstitutional, because nothing in the Constitution would ever authorize such an expenditure. One of Hitler's first actions was to nationalize the police force of Germany (ever heard of the Gestapo?). As the banks learned, and as General Motors learned, with federal money comes federal control.

Moving to the second congressional district, our delegation's lone Democrat, Dan Boren, asked for $1.3 million for a firearms training facility for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Isn't the funding of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol the responsibility of, let's say, Oklahoma? Boren also requested over five million dollars for the construction of a new courthouse in Adair County! Good grief, how did our ancestors ever get courthouses built without money from Congress? But they did!

In the third congressional district, Frank Lucas wanted $19.7 million to widen U.S. 60 between Bartlesville and Pawhuska. Maybe that is a good idea, and maybe it isn't, but at least it is a U.S. highway, not a courthouse in Adair County, or spending on some cops in a Tulsa public school. But Lucas is not to be outdone by Boren and Sullivan. He made a request for $2.7 million for a police building in Piedmont. Particularly incredible was Lucas' asking for $3 million to the Girl Scouts for a rural outreach program. Now, I think the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts are great organizations, but they are private organizations and should not receive one penny of federal funds. They should be supported by voluntary, private donations.

Tom Cole represents the fourth congressional district, and he put in a request for $4 million for the city of Norman for an arsenic treatment plant for water. Probably a good thing, since I live in Norman, and I would prefer not to have arsenic with my meal, but why should the federal government pay for this? Cole also asked for more than six million dollars for a visitor center at the Chickasaw National Recreation Area. No comment is needed. Cole also wanted $9 million to widen Interstate 35 to six lanes in Norman. Once again, it is part of the interstate highway system (I realize that there are some who believe the interstate highway system is itself unconstitutional, but I think that they are wrong on that).

In the fifth congressional district, Mary Fallin requested $15 million for the Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security for a public communications system, $15 million for the Lincoln/Byers connection to the I-40 Crosstown Expressway, and $53 million to provide the Oklahoma National Guard with Medium Tactical Vehicles. All would seem to be OK, the last passing the constitutionality test because the National Guard is part of the national defense structure of the United States.

However, Fallin also asked for $10 million for the OrthoCare Innovations Foundation to improve amputee patient care. Perhaps this has some connection to wounded veterans, I am not sure, but generally speaking most of these medical research projects should be privately funded.

The whole issue of "earmarks" comes down to this: Is the money being spent on a legitimate federal government purpose, and is it a wise expenditure of the taxpayers' money?

As I understand, congressional earmarks do not add spending to the federal budget, they simply allocate the money. In other words, the Constitution grants Congress the power to spend federal money, for purposes legal under the Constitution. The alternative is for federal bureaucrats to make the decision on how the money is spent. Under this scenario, if Congress wants to specify how federal dollars are allocated, they are very much within their legitimate constitutional grant of authority to do so.

The problem with congressional earmarks is NOT members of Congress making decisions on how money is spent. The problem is that whether the expenditure is a wise use of the taxpayers' hard-earned money, and does Congress have constitutional authority to spend the money on that specific purpose?

For example, why should some hard-working business owner in Texas, or a hard-working bricklayer in Alabama, or a hard-working farmer in Kansas, have money taken out of his pocket to pay for a firearms training facility in Oklahoma? I realize that hard-working business owners, bricklayers, and farmers in Oklahoma also have to cough up tax dollars for such purposes in Texas, Alabama, and Kansas, but does that make it right, constitutional, and even wise?

Why should the money be extracted from taxpayers in Texas, Alabama, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and sent to Washington, D.C., where some federal bureaucrat gets a cut, and then sent back to the local communities where the money came from? Doesn't it make more sense for the money to simply stay in the states from whence it came?

This money doesn't just come from thin air. It comes from taxes, borrowing (and eventually taxes), or from the federal government simply creating the money (an insidious form of taxation). Yet, many local officials salivate at the thought of "federal money" being dropped on their fair city.

I recently read an article in the Norman Transcript in which local officials lambasted state Senator Randy Brogdon after he called for the rejection of federal stimulus money, if it came with strings attached. None of the local officials even commented (or at least they weren't quoted as such by the reporter) on Brogdon's concern about strings attached to the money.

No, the mayor of one town said he was very upset that a state senator failed to pay his taxes or pay speeding tickets, yet wanted us to reject stimulus money. This FALSELY implied that Brogdon had not paid his taxes or tickets, when it was another state senator who had been in the news for those actions, or if you will, non actions. When I called the mayor about this unfair statement, he did not return my call. When I pointed this out to the Norman newspaper, they failed to write a story correcting the record.

Perhaps this makes the point about the dangerous effects of "federal money," whether through an earmark or through the so-called Obama Stimulus Package. When money is available, it simply does not matter about the Constitution, or the trashing of an innocent person's reputation.