The post below about TEA 21 needs to be discussed in different terms other than simple "pork"

First of all, anybody interested in the ways of government appropriations best be guided by the old adage: "There are two things a man should not see made for him-his laws and his sausages".

The basic idea for government spending is that some goods are "non-parcellable",that is that they can't be sold in definite quantities to buyers/consumers who get all the benefits of ownership/consumption. These are so called "public goods", although politicians take significant liberties with the term.

Apples are private goods ( I buy it, its mine), the light from a streetlight is a public good. Because apples are parcellable, supply and demand works to produce the "right" amount. Public goods create the "free rider" problem, where one can receive benefits w/o paying for them, so the market fails. So the government taxes the PRESUMED beneficiaries, usually with a proxy for PRESUMED usuage.

While this seems pretty simple on the face, it gets complicated when a private good has benefits or detriments that accrue to the other parties than the owner/consumer (referred to as "externalities".) Vaccinations are an example of this-they protect the individual-but if enough individuals are protected, society is protected from an epidemic. This occupies an entire branch of the dismal science-(public finance) These guys and gals study interesting things like the effects "single and multiple peaked preferences".

Now what constitutes "externalities" is open to debate and changes over time. Our friendly federal government, loaded with Detroit types in the 1950's-destroyed intermediate distance passenger rail by creating the Interstate Highway System. The "externality" was that the IHS was central to mobility for national defense. Presumably, our forces could move freely about-nobody addressed the fact that our opponent wasn't going to launch a ground invasion and could follow on the same roads. It truly was pork. Whats good for General Motors...

Now we are faced with a different problem. Air Quality is the new "externality" and rail is "the answer" so TEA 21 and other legislation has been enacted to recreate the infrastructure.

Should we be surprised that there's preservation money in there? Not at all. In a past life, i had the opportunity to read something called "the small business job protection act of 1996". In 6 point type, it was the size of a Reader's Digest. It had almost nothing to do with small businesses, jobs or protection. It was a lot of pension reform and other dull things that the public wouldn't get to excited about. But all the yeahs went home to say I voted to protect small business jobs!!!

As for local authorities expending the money, that a damn sight better than having Washington dictate what it should be spent on. No system is perfect when somebody else spending your money. Its better when the authority is closest to the beneficiaries. In this case, the Feds almost had to cede appropriations control to local authorities or send the money to the DOT, where 70% would've been spent on studies ordered by petty-tyrant-zealots like Joan Claybrook.

Is there a public purpose to any given piece of preservation? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder-but if its up to me, given that government loves to spend my money, I'll take the worst preservation project over some idiot urinating on a religious symbol and calling it art and getting a grant for it. A 5 year old watching a steamer, might get interested in engineering, history or business.