Washington, D.C. – The following is a written statement from Jill Lancelot, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense:

The conferees on the Transportation Spending bill are near finalizing a spending package that is supposed to eliminate the earmarks for the two ‘bridges to nowhere’ in Alaska. The proposal would strip from the transportation bill the requirement that Alaska spend nearly half a billion federal taxpayer dollars on two wasteful and unnecessary bridges.

These projects are not only the poster children for wasteful federal spending, but also a symbol of parochial pork pandering in Congress. Rightfully so, the projects have been the butt of jokes on TV and ridiculed by hundreds of newspapers around the county.

Blowing up these ‘bridges to nowhere’ represents a victory for taxpayers, Alaskans and the rest of the nation. Instead of forcing taxpayers to buy a pair of boneheaded bridges, money would be freed up for much more important Alaskan transportation priorities. We’re not naïve; we recognize the bridges could be resuscitated. Taxpayers for Common Sense will keep an eagle eye on congressional activities to make sure these deadbeat bridges stay dead.

The transportation bill had 6,371 transportation earmarks at the cost of more than $24 billion, so eliminating these earmarks is an important turn of events, but it doesn’t turn a budgetary loser into fiscal winner. The good news here is that these efforts put more of the decision making on state and local officials, who are the experts in what a state does and does not need.

Alaska is the first of many states to find out that earmarks are an expensive promise to keep. In many cases, Congress provided little more than a small down payment for costly projects, handcuffing the state from funding higher priority projects.

Hopefully, this will prod Congress to consider legislation such as Rep. Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) ActFAST Act (H.R. 4071), which will not only free up all transportation bill earmarks for states to spend as they wish, but also cuts the bill to bring it more in line with expected gas tax receipts.