The Deficit, the Pork and the Pittsburgh Water
Taxis
January 30, 2004
The federal deficit is a disaster, but nobody better mess with my Pittsburgh water taxis.
As you know, the federal deficit stands at $477 billion, the largest in our nation's history (not factoring in inflation). Yet despite that massive number, our elected leaders continue spending our money like drunken sailors.
A week ago, the Senate finally passed the FY04 Omnibus Appropriations bill. The 2,500-page bill was crammed with nearly $400 billion in new spending. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, it was also crammed with more than 7,000 pork projects.
That's where we get to the Pittsburgh water taxis.
Pittsburgh is a beautiful city. It's populated by the friendliest and most colorful people on the planet. It's blessed with many hills and valleys that form beautiful rivers, such as the Monongahela, the Allegheny and the Ohio.
But the economy is in a tatters. Young people attend world-class universities
there, then flee to other cities. Pittsburgh's population is one of
the oldest in the country. The tax base is drying up and the city cannot
pay its bills.
Some folks are doing whatever they can to help the city out. That's
how the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, a group that oversees Pittsburgh's
waterways, came up with an idea: water taxis.
Despite all the beautiful rivers in Pittsburgh, there is no daily water-taxi service. The occasional water taxi comes out to transport sports fans to Pirates and Steelers games, but no water taxi entrepreneur has been able to make a go of it. One fellow, Wayne Dean, gave it a whirl a few years ago and lost a boatload of dough.
That's why it caught my attention last week when I saw an item in the new appropriations spending. Sen. Arlen Specter, a member of the Appropriations Committee, secured $1.5 million for a water taxi system in Pittsburgh.
I called J.D. Fogarty, director of development at the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, to get the skinny. He said the money will be used to develop a regularly scheduled taxi service. The government dough will buy the water taxis, at a cost of up to $150 grand a pop, and a private firm will be selected to operate the business.
Fogarty said the water taxis will be beneficial to the development of the waterfronts. They'll give commuters another option to get to and from work. They'll support tourism. They'll do all kinds of good things, which is what people always say about federal grants - unless the grants go to somebody else.
But I asked him if the federal government should be in the water taxi business. And did he in any way feel guilty for spending money that was directly contributing to our massive federal deficit? His response made too much sense.
In a nutshell, if the good people of Pittsburgh aren't pressing their legislators to get them federal dough, somebody else in some other district is going to get it - especially with the way legislators or spending. In fact, wouldn't people be angrier if Pittsburghers didn't try to get their piece of the tax pie?
Well, he's certainly right about that. The federal government is funding thousands of projects that are a lot wackier than water taxis. They're paying $450,000 to study Sudden Oak Disease Syndrome. New Mexico is getting $225,000 for a Wheels Museum. And the University of Hawaii is getting $200,000 to produce a film about Kalahari Bushmen chasing after animals in the wild.
So after talking with Fogarty, I got to thinking. On one hand, I think the deficit is bad for the country and it has to be reduced. But on the other hand, America owes Pittsburgh. Hey, my people built the steel that built this country's infrastructure. Our hard work delivered victory in two major wars.
And if the rest of the country is going to squander millions of dollars
on goofy projects, then the least my fellow taxpayers can do is fund
some lousy water taxis.
Besides, deficits come and go but, with the federal government's largesse,
water taxis just might be something Pittsburgh will always have.
