Shrug, wink: Everybody else does it

Congressman Jim McDermott has now explained what he was thinking when he sought to use taxpayer dollars to polish up The Rainier Club's windowsills.

He was thinking: Why aren't you making a grab for cash, too?

"This is not a ridiculous request," McDermott said. "Everybody in the 7th District has the right to make a request — the University of Washington, The Rainier Club, everybody."

Set aside for now the tone-deafness of comparing our largest public university, reeling from budget cuts, with a private social club (where choice subcommittee assignments include the likes of "Greeting and Hospitality" and "Single Malt Scotch.")

Let's also stipulate that the quarter-million dollars McDermott wants to fix the club's limestone sills is less than one-ten-millionth of the federal budget. That's barely the odor of bacon in Congress' annual serving of pork.

What bugs me is McDermott's shrug. Everybody does it. It's OK, line up at the federal trough. Rich, poor, private, public — it doesn't matter. We all go for the bailout. Why not you, too?

I wonder how we'll ever dig ourselves out of our financial hole if this is the attitude of the folks writing the budget.

I see on McDermott's list of suggested earmarks that The Rainier Club is not alone. Example: a request for $2.5 million from the Seattle office of a Norwegian company called Birdstep Technology. It makes software databases for mobile networks.

Birdstep has a proposal in to make the personal digital assistants used by firefighters and the U.S. military more secure. That sounds worthwhile. But what stopped me was the rationale this business submitted for why it needs U.S. taxpayer money now.

"This is a good use of public funds because the initial economical impact will be Birdstep Technology, Inc.'s ability to maintain its current staff and health benefits for its families," the request says.

Good grief. I realize we did an emergency bailout of General Motors using this logic. But has propping up private business become so commonplace that it's now a selling point on government-funding applications?

At first this earmarks story seemed tiresome to me. Silly congressman submits ludicrous requests from begging aristocrats. Populists wave pitchforks. Then all slip back into torpor until it happens again next year.

But on reflection, these earmarks are a case study as to why America is in such deep trouble. And not likely to dig ourselves out any time soon.

Can our politicians — even liberals like McDermott — really see no distinction between the needy and the rich, the public and the corporate? If record budget deficits that could drag down a generation aren't enough to compel Congress to get serious about finances, what will it take?

I remember at Obama's inauguration he evoked "raging storms" and "this winter of our hardship." He said we're in crisis, and quoted Scripture to add: "The time has come to set aside childish things."

Yet here we are five months later, marshaling the federal government to fix windowsills at The Rainier Club. Where they apparently hold to another timeless parable from Scripture: "To whom much has been given, much more can be gotten. Via federal earmark."

C'mon, everyone. Making do is what's required. Living within means. When is the government going to start on that?

No big surprise, I guess, that this urgent message hasn't seeped into the Single Malt Scotch subcommittee.

As for McDermott? He's on a committee, too, only it's supposed to be a bit more sober-minded than this. Goes by the name Ways and Means.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.