While I was on vacation, Congress passed legislation with regard to corporate responsibility.

I think that may be the biggest, most blatant example of "do as I say, not as I do" in the history of mankind.

Don't misunderstand. Corporate CEOs and CFOs need to be held accountable when they create debacles like Enron, WorldCom and Xerox.

I have no problem with any of that. Corporate responsibility certainly is a worthy goal for American business and the economy.

But how about a little congressional responsibility while we're at it?

Congress has budget caps to guide them as they relentlessly spend our tax dollars.

But Congress routinely passes what they call "supplemental spending bills" to get around the caps. Then they go a step further and call it an "emergency" bill or a "stopgap" bill. Then they say that the stopgap or emergency spending doesn't really count against the budget during the year when the "emergency" occurred.

And really, very few of these "emergencies" would qualify as emergencies in your or my definition of the word.

Nonetheless, according to Scripps Howard, our distinguished members of Congress have spent $142 billion that way over the past five years.

By the way, Enron, WorldCom and Xerox misstated revenues to the tune of about $12 billion combined. Without minimizing the significance of $12 billion in misstated revenue, their misdeeds pale in comparison to those of the people we elect to do our business.

Want to talk about accounting errors?

OK.

How about more than $22 billion in improper or erroneous Medicare payments each year? Or another $11 or $12 billion in bogus Medicaid payments?

That's the mistaken and extorted dollars.

How about a just little plain old-fashioned wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars?

Citizens Against Government Waste tracks what it determines to be wasteful spending. To make the list of pork, the line item must meet at least one of CAGW's seven criteria for wasteful spending. Virtually all of them meet at least two. Here are the criteria:

• Requested by only one chamber of Congress

• Not specifically authorized

• Not competitively awarded

• Not requested by the president

• Greatly exceeds the president's budget request or the previous year's funding

• Not the subject of congressional hearings, or

• Serves only a local or special interest.

Here are a few examples:

• $47,160,000 for projects in the state of Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee member Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and House Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee member Tom Latham (R-Iowa), including: $40 million for the National Animal Disease Center in Ames; $632,000 for Midwest agricultural products; $400,000 for manure management research at the National Swine Research Center; $280,000 for the Iowa Vitality Center; and $200,000 for hoop barns.

• $62.438 million for projects in the state of Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Ted Stevens (R-Alaska),including: $9.4 million for the Juneau Fisheries Laboratory; $5.5 million for Kasitsna Bay Laboratory at the University of Alaska; $3.5 million for the stellar sea lion recovery plan at North Pacific University; $2 million for the Canada Alaska Rail Commission; $1 million for University of Alaska stellar sea lion recovery; $1 million for groundfish monitoring and crab and scallop license monitoring; $750,000 to prevent Atlantic salmon from escaping state streams; $500,000 for stellar sea lion recovery at the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, whose membership rates run from $150 to $750 a year (why not just raise rates?); $250,000 to prepare discussions regarding the Columbia River hydrosystem management; $250,000 for the United Fisherman of Alaska; and $150,000 for the Alaska Native Harbor Seal Commission.

• $268.3 million for projects in the state of Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), including: $42.5 million for the Kaho'olawe Island Conveyance Fund (since 1996, CAGW has identified $102 million appropriated for this cleanup); $15.3 million for the Hawaii Federal Health Care Network; $6 million for the Pacific Disaster Center; $4 million for Project Albert; $2.6 million for the Hawaii National Guard Counter-Drug Program; $2 million for thin layered chromotopography; and $1 million for the Hickam Air Force Base alternative fuel vehicle program.

OK, enough. I'm probably boring you. Or maybe incensing you.

Those are the top pork guys in just three departments - agriculture, commerce and defense. There are a dozen other departments.

The total pork barrel take for 2002? 8,341 projects in 13 appropriations bills at a cost of $20.1 billion.

That's up 32 percent over last year's 6,333 projects and 9 percent over last year's cost of $18.5 billion.

In 1997, the total was $14.5 billion. In 1996, $6.6 billion.

And you thought Enron squandered stockholder equity. I think taxpayers are government stockholders. And we're getting a raw deal.

And speaking of raw deals, private businesses aren't allowed to suck money out of pension trust funds for operating expenses, are they?

But that's exactly what Congress does.

In 2000 and 2001, the federal government confiscated $463 billion from various trust funds - including $272 billion from Social Security - to prop up operational and deficit spending.

I guess in Washington when they say "trust fund" what they really mean is slush fund.

You know, if the federal government was a corporation, it would have been out of business long ago.

So it's really difficult for me to listen to some Washington politician blather on about corporate responsibility.

Maybe those guys should practice a little fiscal responsibility of their own. [[In-content Ad]]