Milking 9-11 for Dollars.(government spending)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

Somewhere in Washington, a whistle-blower called "Spartacus" is living a double life. A few months ago the anonymous aide to a U.S. senator penned an insider's report on what really happened after September 11 on Capitol Hill. One by one, self-righteous senators took to the floor to give patriotic speeches, then retired to back rooms to lard the new spending bills with millions for gyms, a chapel and other pet projects unrelated to the war effort. Even in an age of terror, it seems that what really counts for politicians is delivering the goods for the voters back home. "For the U.S. Senate, war is not hell," Spartacus scoffed in the report, which got small blurbs in a couple of papers before landing in NEWSWEEK's hands. "It's an opportunity."

It's amazing what lobbyists and politicians are selling as crucial to the war on terror. California date farmers led a massive push to send their fruit to Afghanistan, arguing that dates were essential to aid starving Afghans. Road-sign manufacturers lobbied for new signs to better direct panicked citizens out of besieged cities. Since August the 2002 government-budget projection has shrunk from a $176 billion surplus to a $100 billion deficit, due largely to the economic downturn but also to the way 9-11 swept away spending restraint. "Everybody in town realized that... now the deficit doesn't matter anymore," complains Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. "I mean, you had the government setting aside money to buy bison meat in the stimulus package!" (The U.S. government shelled out $6 million to buy surplus bison meat in February.)

Many senators simply recycled old requests in the new language of homeland defense. The farm-subsidy program--the Agricultural Act of 2001--was renamed the Farm Security Act. One provision, a $3.5 billion subsidy for peanut farmers, "strengthens America's national security," insisted Alabama Rep. Terry Everett. The milk lobby won backing to protect the "security" of the nation's milk supply," with millions in subsidies for dairy farmers. After 9-11, Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina renamed his $4.5 billion funding bill for Amtrak, the troubled national passenger railway, the National Defense Rail Act. Andy Davis, a Hollings spokesman, calls the new name "a historical reference" to the role of railways in national defense. So what does this bill defend? "The impact to the economy," Davis says.

Never mind that some economists think America's mounting debts are the worse threat to the economy. After the Bush administration decided to bail out the airlines in late September, industries from insurance to car rentals ...