Article published April 25, 2006
Stop the casino corridor
FIRST came Alaska's infamous "bridges to nowhere." Now, an even more outrageous plan is afoot in Congress to blackjack taxpayers for a casino corridor along Mississippi's Gulf Coast.
A $106.5 billion Iraq war appropriations bill moving through the Senate includes a quiet rider: a $700 million down payment on creation of a boulevard along the route of U.S. 90, through Biloxi and other cities, where developers are busily rebuilding oceanside gambling casinos wiped out last year by Hurricane Katrina.
The money would pay to tear out a major coastal rail line which its owner, CSX, has spent some $250 million to repair just since the hurricane. Train traffic would be shifted to another line to the north and the right of way would be converted to a realigned U.S. 90, a "pedestrian-friendly beach boulevard" for tourists to use as they "spend more time strolling among the casinos and taking in the views," in the words of a state commission.
We can't blame Mississippi for wanting to rebuild in the wake of the storm, but this proposal is misguided on several levels and it should be short-stopped by Congress.
It is just one more indefensible example of a congressional "earmark," in which taxpayer money is allocated in scattershot fashion without oversight or public hearings for pet projects of influential lawmakers, in this case Republican Sens. Trent Lott and Thad Cochran.
In comparison, last year's premier boondoggle, in which $452 million in federal funds was approved for two bridges in sparsely populated areas of Alaska, almost looks reasonable.If Mississippi can justify redeveloping the casino region with a beach boulevard, it should compete for federal money through the normal federal transportation-funding process. As it is, this project looks mostly like a grand giveaway to casino interests and real estate developers.
As with any federally funded project, the $700 million would pay only to relocate the rail line; it would simply be the precursor to requests to Washington for millions more to build the highway.
Moreover, war-funding legislation should be considered separately, not loaded down with extraneous pork-barrel projects that get approved simply because lawmakers feel patriotically compelled to "support the troops."
As we have said before, Mississippi, which was hit as hard by Katrina as New Orleans but has gotten less attention, deserves its fair share of federal storm aid. Still, we would like to see the money go for more immediate needs, such as housing, rather than long-term speculative ventures.
In a time of historically high federal budget deficits, Congress should be giving more consideration, not less, to deciding how scarce tax dollars are spent.
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