My tax dollars at work

USA Today has a feature this morning on "orphaned" pork projects - earmarks on the '09 budget added by members of Congress who have since been voted out of, or left, their seats.

There's no question that the story's author wants us to be totally disgusted - he leads with the amount designated for projects by the Disgraced Mssrs. Larry Craig and Rick Renzi - and he seems to have no trouble whipping his commenters into a fury.

The irony is that the interactive list of the orphaned earmarks (like most earmark lists), is comprised, on the whole, of unobjectionable public spending on worthy organizations and smart policies.

Like the purchase of a mobile mammography unit in Ohio, or the funding of a Minnesota center for substance abuse and parenting treatment services. Or the development of an electronic, Colorado-wide law enforcement information-sharing network and of programs in Kansas for pre-school and school-age children with autism and sensory integration delays.

In fact, heretical as it might be, I would argue that these kind of projects represent the best type of government spending, even the best parts of the American tradition: providing direct services to our neighbors in need, and harnessing technological, environmental, and policy innovation to improve everyone's quality of life. In other words, if you believe the government has a legitimate role in collecting and distributing funds for the public good, whence the outrage at this kind of targeted, small-bore spending? Americans so frequently complain that the government doesn't "care about the little guys," but this is what it looks like when it does.

Personally, having just written my annual check to Uncle Sam yesterday, I actually found the experience of reading the earmarked list to be a real pleasure - rather than imagining those hard earned dollars dumped into the bottomless AIG pit, I can instead see my taxes as a part of the life-saving early detection of a tumor in a Cincinnati woman, or of the hope of parents in Wichita whose autistic kindergartener has been taught a new way to communicate. A donation, if you will, to my fellow citizens, or a contribution to an American ideal.