Pork as a Symbol

When I posted recently about the bonuses at AIG, I did not spend any time talking about how the outrage over that issue was over the symbolic gesture of the bonuses and that the actual cost of the bonuses were low compared to the government bailout. The point I would have made is that symbols can be important, even if they are not in proportion to the actual issue itself.

Pork barrel spending is another example of this, and can be even more salient when you consider the difficult times governments are facing. Take New York State for example. The state budget just agreed on by the only three people who matter was $131.8 billion, or $79.2 billion of state operating funds (not counting federal funds). The deficit before the new budget was announced was $17 billion. Total pork spending in the budget was $170 million. Therefore, total pork spending was one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of the total budget, or two-tenths of one percent (0.2%) of the state funded budget, or just one percent (1%) of the previous deficit. Even though the pork spending is such a small share of overall budget numbers, it seems appalling that the state legislature would choose to allocate limited funds to special projects in their districts, and allocated there because of their power not because of need.

John McCain recognizes this at the federal level, which is why he focuses on it so much. However, one can go far, and make a symbolic issue appear to be more than a symbol. McCain seemed to present eliminating pork as a way to significantly cut government spending. As you can see in the above example, cutting the pork spending would not have helped the state get close to dealing with its budget gap, and the ratios are similar at the federal level.

The point is that symbolic issues are important in the messages they send about priorities. But exaggerating them can backfire, because people see that dealing with that issue will not solve the underlying problem. The state's pork spending is absurd, but not as big a deal as the way the budget was made (behind closed doors) and the appearance that they avoided tough choices.