Today, most of us are quite familiar with the term "Pork-Barrel Spending”. These Congressional earmarks and line items that have long been the bane of Congress. Pork-barrel spending sends billions of federal dollars back to states or municipalities to fund localized projects. The term was first popularized by Chester Collins Maxey in 1919 who reported on certain legislative acts that were known to members of Congress as "pork barrel bills". But here I give credit to Andrew Jackson for being one of the first presidents to veto a bill because it contained too much pork. When Congress passed an appropriations bill for the building of additional lighthouses, Jackson pointed out that the bill had too many "direct" appropriations for localized projects, many of which he called extravagant that were "neither necessary nor useful".
Just before Congress adjourned in 1829, they sent two internal improvement bills to President Jackson for his signature. One was an act to authorize the purchase of stock in the Portland Canal Company, and the other was "An act for making appropriations for building light houses, light boats, beacons, and monuments, placing buoys, and for improving harbors and directing surveys". Neither of these had any real chance of being signed by Jackson, but rather than veto the bill and send it back, Jackson chose to just sit on them and let them expire in what is called a pocket-veto. In a previous post, I explained how this was an attempt to create a political wedge between the Jacksonians and the Anti-Jacksonians as they approached both the 1830 Senate elections and the 1832 Presidential elections. In this post, I will explore Jackson's reasoning for not signing the lighthouse appropriations bill. Jackson was never one to be short on words, and in his 1830 State of the Union address, he gave a very lengthy explanation of why he did not sign the bill. It contained too much pork, or what Jackson called “direct” appropriations.
First, Jackson made it clear that he did not pocket veto the bill because it was unconstitutional. In fact, Jackson said explained that the practice of the federal government using the federal treasury to support "light houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers within the bays, inlets, harbors, and ports of the United States, to render the navigation thereof safe and easy" is coeval with the adoption of the Constitution. Coeval may not be a term we use often today, but it means 'right from the start'. In other words, Jackson believed that our founding fathers intended to use treasury dollars to maintain the safety of the seas for navigation and has "been continued without interruption or dispute". But, as our foreign commerce increased, the federal government established ports and extended its sphere of control to the navigable rivers and harbors where Jackson suggested Congress was being influenced by regional politics and special interests. Often, the establishment of light houses and the removal of sandbars and other impediments "were embraced in the revenue districts", and laws were authorized that benefited those revenue districts by defraying the costs of their pet projects. Some of these projects were quite "extravagant and disproportionate". Jackson shared a very astute observation: If public money is disbursed to local projects too frequently and too easily, it leads to projects which are "neither necessary nor useful". Jackson did not oppose funding of light houses in general, but he opposed this bill because it was nothing more than what we today would call "pork-barrel spending". Like a bridge to nowhere, these projects were neither necessary nor useful.
"The practice of defraying out of the Treasury of the United States the expenses incurred by the establishment and support of light houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers within the bays, inlets, harbors, and ports of the United States, to render the navigation thereof safe and easy, is coeval with the adoption of the Constitution, and has been continued without interruption or dispute.Jackson explained, that at the end of 1829, the number of light house keepers was already very large, and the bill proposed adding an additional 51 personnel. In Jackson’s opinion, there just was no need to add 51 new employees to an already bloated staff. In fact, Jackson shared that some experts had even suggested that the safety of navigation on the seas was decreasing as the number of lighthouses and the changing of lights increased. Jackson wanted to make it clear to Congress, he was not suggesting that the federal government abdicate its responsibility to protect the navigation on the seas for commercial purposes, for the burden and benefit of "protecting and accommodating" foreign commerce went hand in hand. The security of our ports benefited the entire nation, the safer the ports and harbors are, the cheaper the products are for everyone including those on the frontier and those along the Northeast coast. Jackson wrote to congress, that if it could be shown that the "direct" appropriations of this bill generally increased the security of our ports then he would have signed it. But that was not the case with this bill. In the case of this bill, it contained too many line items that were of local interest only. All Jackson wanted was for Congress to revisit the bill and pull out the pork. If they did this, he would be happy to sign the bill.
As our foreign commerce increased and was extended into the interior of the country by the establishment of ports of entry and delivery upon our navigable rivers the sphere of those expenditures received a corresponding enlargement. Light houses, beacons, buoys, public piers, and the removal of sand bars, sawyers, and other partial or temporary impediments in the navigable rivers and harbors which were embraced in the revenue districts from time to time established by law were authorized upon the same principle and the expense defrayed in the same manner. That these expenses have at times been extravagant and disproportionate is very probable. The circumstances under which they are incurred are well calculated to lead to such a result unless their application is subjected to the closest scrutiny. The local advantages arising from the disbursement of public money too frequently, it is to be feared, invite appropriations for objects of this character that are neither necessary nor useful."
"The number of light house keepers is already very large, and the bill before me proposes to add to it 51 more of various descriptions. From representations upon the subject which are understood to be entitled to respect I am induced to believe that there has not only been great improvidence in the past expenditures of the Government upon these objects, but that the security of navigation has in some instances been diminished by the multiplication of light houses and consequent change of lights upon the coast. It is in this as in other respects our duty to avoid all unnecessary expense, as well as every increase of patronage not called for by the public service.So, what were these "direct" appropriations or what we today call 'pork'? The bill itself included a plethora of very specific items. Here are just a few of them.
But in the discharge of that duty in this particular it must not be forgotten that in relation to our foreign commerce the burden and benefit of protecting and accommodating it necessarily go together, and must do so as long as the public revenue is drawn from the people through the custom house. It is indisputable that whatever gives facility and security to navigation cheapens imports and all who consume them are alike interested in what ever produces this effect. If they consume, they ought, as they now do, to pay; otherwise they do not pay. The consumer in the most inland State derives the same advantage from every necessary and prudent expenditure for the facility and security of our foreign commerce and navigation that he does who resides in a maritime State. Local expenditures have not of themselves a corresponding operation.
From a bill making *direct* appropriations for such objects I should not have withheld my assent. The one now returned does so in several particulars, but it also contains appropriations for surveys of local character, which I can not approve. It gives me satisfaction to find that no serious inconvenience has arisen from withholding my approval from this bill; nor will it, I trust, because of regret that an opportunity will be thereby afforded for Congress to review its provisions under circumstances better calculated for full investigation than those under which it was passed."
- $4,000 for a lighthouse at the entrance of Fox Island thoroughfare (Maine)
- $6,000 for a light house at or near Cape Porpoise (Maine)
- $500 for placing 10 boys in the northern channel through Vinyhard Sound (Maine)
- $3000 for a beacon-light at the harbor of Wickford (Rhode Island)
- $50 for a spindle on the Halfway Rock between Rhode Island and Connecticut
- $7,500 for a light house on Chincoteague island (Virginia)
- $11,000 for a lighthouse near Brunt Island Shoal (North Carolina)
- $40,000 for two lighthouses on the Mississippi River (Louisiana)
- $5,000 for a lighthouse at the mouth of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan (Illinois)
- $11,400 for a lighthouse on St. George's Island (Florida Territory)
References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2019). Second Annual Message | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/second-annual-message-3 [Accessed 2 Feb. 2019].A Collection of the Laws of the United States Relating to Revenue, Navigation and Commerce, and Light-houses, Etc: Up to March 4, 1843, Including the Treaties with Foreign Powers. (1844). Ashmead and Company, pp.575-577. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?id=EWZZAAAAYAAJ [Accessed 2 Feb. 2019].
En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Pork barrel. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_barrel [Accessed 2 Feb. 2019].
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