Feeding at the transportation trough.(Correction, Please!)(Correction Notice)

ITEM: The Los Angeles Times for August 11 reported: "President Bush signed the $286.5-billion transportation bill Wednesday, saying it would ease traffic congestion throughout the country, create hundreds of thousands of jobs and impose stricter vehicular safety standards that would save lives."

"'Our economy depends on us having the most efficient, reliable transportation system in the world,' Bush said.... But 'highways just don't happen,' the president said. 'People have got to show up and do the work to refit a highway or build a bridge, and the)' need new equipment to do so. So the bill I'm signing is going to help give hundreds of thousands of Americans good-paying jobs.'"

ITEM: The New York Times for August 11 reported: "Mr. Bush had threatened to veto the transportation legislation if its cost was too high, and he had initially set the line at $284 billion."

CORRECTION: The president repeatedly drew lines in the sand over the cost, promising a veto if that limit was passed, then retreated when the supposed cutoff point was left behind. Unnoted in the New York Times report, he had previously vowed to reject any bill over $256 billion. Subsequently, $270 billion was going to be the limit. This summer, the president said he wouldn't swallow more than $284 billion, and then did so. Nevertheless, he boasted about the bill's passage.

The transportation bill will no doubt prove to be even more expensive than the mammoth $286.5 billion mentioned above. To disguise the apparent expense, Congress added a budgetary ruse called a "rescission," amounting to more than $8.5 billion. Thus, the bill's actual spending authority is $295 billion, with Congress saying it might "take back" $8.5 billion from the states in 2009. "Nobody believes that's going to happen," said a dissenting Representative Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). "It's frankly a pretty transparent gimmick."

The bill is a headlong surrender from even an appearance of stewardship. Consider that not long ago, in the 2002 transportation bill, Congress added some 1,400 "earmarks" (pork projects tossed in by members of Congress). Those earmarks, reeking at a level of $3.2 billion, were widely viewed as outrageous. The White House, commented columnist Dale McFeatters, "declared war on them as wasteful and ...