Officials lobbied to get more East Main funds

Critics of the federal bill said the interchange highlights two problems with the program.

When local officials lobbied for federal help to build a new Interstate 55 interchange, they knew that a practical road project involved more than just new exit ramps.

So they didn't just tell federal lawmakers about the $5.8 million cost for the interchange. They also explained the $4.5 million more it would cost to build roads to the site.

"We made all three federal officials aware of what the project would cost for the interchange and connecting streets," Jackson Mayor Paul Sander said. "We didn't ask for a specific dollar amount. We went to them and said please help by taking the strain off of local governments."

And the lawmakers responded. Each earmarked money for the project in the recently approved $286 billion highway bill. U.S. Sen. Kit Bond got $5 million set aside, U.S. Sen. Jim Talent got $5 million and U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, put $800,000 of federal gas tax money into the project.

That total -- $10.8 million -- means local governments don't have to put up money they had set aside for either the interchange or the roads that will connect it to Jackson and Cape Girardeau.

"An interchange going nowhere would not do anybody any good," Sander said.

And, said Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson, the federal help acknowledges the strong support each of the three has received from Cape Girardeau County voters. Last year, Bond received 70.4 percent of local votes in his bid for re-election. Talent took 68.6 percent in 2002 and Emerson has been a local favorite since taking over the seat held by her late husband.

"What other project can the senators and the congresswoman get involved in that with one stroke of the pen helps the city, the county, Jackson and the university?" Knudtson said. "These are their very constituents that are their lifeblood."

Jackson already has $1.3 million from road sales tax revenue set aside to extend East Main Street to the site. And Cape Girardeau voters last week approved a sales-tax extension that promised $3.2 million to rebuild and extend County Road 618, to be renamed LaSalle Avenue, to I-55.

Congress must follow up the highway bill with a spending bill. Area officials are expecting the project, called the East Main Street interchange, to be in the upcoming appropriation and hope to begin work sometime next year.

Jackson's priority list

And sooner than that, Jackson officials will present plans for using the $1.3 million elsewhere, Sander said. "We obviously have a priority list of other projects in our planning process that can be immediately moved up," he said. "Within 90 days, you would be able to make decisions with funding that would be available."

On the Cape Girardeau side, Knudtson said the city will go ahead with the construction of LaSalle Avenue and seek to use the extra federal money to construct an east outer road along I-55. The road would connect Center Junction with the East Main interchange.

"There is such a burst of development north, it is critical we provide an outer road that connects LaSalle to the Center Junction areas," Knudtson said.

A finance agreement originally divided the cost of the East Main Street interchange between the Missouri Department of Transportation and Jackson, Cape Girardeau, Southeast Missouri State University and Cape Girardeau County. Jackson was going to pay 34 percent of the local share while the other three evenly split the rest.

Critics of the federal highway bill said the East Main interchange highlights two big problems with the program -- micromanagement of highway projects from Washington and the pork-barrel politics used to get members' votes for the expensive bill.

Gabriel Roth, a transportation economist and author of "Roads in a Market Economy," said road costs should be paid by users. The East Main interchange was subject to intense negotiations on cost-sharing locally and with the state.

"What you describe seems a perfectly decent way of dealing with those problems," Roth said. "Why send it to Washington? I don't mean any disrespect to Congress, but I don't think they should be deciding what interchanges to build in your state."

Bond, who played a major role in negotiating the final version of the highway bill, has touted the greater share of federal highway dollars it will bring to Missouri. When Bond first won election in 1986, he notes, Missouri was receiving 76 cents for every dollar in gasoline taxes collected here. Under the new bill, Missouri will receive 98 cents out of every dollar in gasoline tax.

That figure, Roth said, may not take into account that a large portion of federal fuel taxes are used to pay for mass transit in major urban areas. A better system, Roth said, would be to take the federal government out of the picture altogether and leave the fuel taxes in the state they are collected.

"It is like a children's party where everybody pays $100 to go to the party and a $50 prize gets distributed to each of the children and everybody is happy with the prizes they get," Roth said.

'Naked form of log-rolling'

The earmarks are blatant payback for important constituencies, said Stephen Slivinsky, director of budget studies for the libertarian Cato Institute. In some instances -- such as Talent's $5 million for the East Main interchange -- the money is taken out of the state's regular allocation. In other instances -- such as the money earmarked by Bond and Emerson -- the money is an extra tucked into the bill.

Almost every member of Congress gets something, Slivinsky said, and it is done to ensure plenty of votes to pass the bill. Lawmakers who deny that it is pork-barrel politics "can say it with a straight face only because they have had a lot of practice saying it with a straight face," he said. "It is a blatant, naked form of log-rolling."

But Southeast Missouri's member of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, Duane Michie of Hayti, said he has no problems with Congress directing how federal highway dollars should be spent.

"It is an indication from the congressional side that these are projects that are important to the congressional delegation," Michie said. "We are not offended by it."

Local officials said the project will be a boon to economic growth in the area. The original agreement that would have paid for the interchange shows how important it is, Knudtson said.

"It earned the right to receive federal money to the degree it did because of what it represents not only to the citizens of Cape Girardeau but to the entire region," Knudtson said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126