Highway (and other) robbery: when it comes to raking in the funds, no one beats Alaska.(PUBLIC POLICY II)(federal spending for bridge construction )

IN October, Alaska Airlines ran a promotional deal that would sound odd to anyone unfamiliar with Alaska politics: "Alaska Airlines' popular Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) fares are now on sale, offering savings of up to 35 percent off the lowest everyday fares ..." Across the state, many other retail outlets are offering similar discounts. All are competing for the attention of Alaskans, who each fall receive a "Permanent Fund Dividend" check, paid out of the state's royalties on oil and gas. This year, the state will disburse roughly $510 million to Alaska's 600,000 residents, which works out to $845 apiece.

Meanwhile, Rep. Don Young, Alaska's lone at-large representative and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is coming under fire from conservatives in Washington for stuffing two bridges into the highway bill President Bush recently signed into law. Combined, the bridges will cost U.S. taxpayers $454 million--just slightly less than the amount Alaska will give away in PFD checks this year. One is designed to connect the town of Ketchikan, Alaska (pop. 8,000), to its airport on nearby Gravina Island (pop. 50), supplanting a ferry service that currently makes the trip in about seven minutes for a fare of $5 to $6. The other, "Don Young's Way," is literally a bridge to nowhere. The idea is to build a bridge between Anchorage and a small rural area called Point MacKenzie (pop. 111) in the hope that Point MacKenzie will grow into somewhere--a suburb of Anchorage (pop. 261,000).

Using Citizens Against Government Waste's definition of pork, Alaska ranks first in per capita pork spending. At $985 per resident, Alaskans received even more money in the form of federal pork this year than they will receive in their PFD checks. Some may find it puzzling that Alaska, which has no state personal-income or sales tax, can hand out millions of dollars in cash to its citizens and receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal pork at the same time. How did a state that prides itself on its self-reliance and frontier spirit become so dependent on federal spending?

The answer, as people familiar with Alaska's political culture know, is Alaska's love-hate relationship with the federal government. "We're very much a red state and we're very much part of the western culture that hates federal control, yet we love federal money," Anchorage Daily News editorial-page editor Larry Persily says. "It's kind of like Alaskans want to go to bed with the feds but don't want to wake up and share breakfast with them."

To maximize their share of federal spending, Alaska has returned Don Young to Congress 15 times, and its senior senator, Ted Stevens, is the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate. Because of their seniority, Young and Stevens are in a position to fight hard for earmarks, and they do so in a way that CAGWpresident Thomas A. Schatz calls "unrepentant." Schatz says: "There's a manner in which Young and Stevens go about their business--they're both very tough, they take in a lot of money and give out a lot of money, and they're certainly not fiscal conservatives in terms of setting examples for their committees."

That's a major understatement. Here are just a few of the goodies Young and Stevens have steered toward Alaska in recent years: $1.8 million for berry research; $1.8 million for sea-otter recovery; $10 million for a psychiatric-treatment facility; $48 million in subsidies for the timber industry; and $500,000 to paint a giant salmon on an Alaska Airlines jetliner. Yet none of these projects compare to the pork Young and Stevens packed into the highway bill. A study by Taxpayers for Common Sense revealed that the $286.5 billion bill contained 119 special projects for Alaska, totaling almost $1 billion. Of the ...