Print edition: 
In my effort to reduce the size of government, I have proposed to eliminate the Economic Development Administration, a politically motivated federal wealth-redistribution agency. Unsurprisingly, its leader, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez, has taken acute personal interest in my proposal.
Earlier this month, Fernandez came to Wichita at taxpayer expense. He attended a Wichita State University event and then met with The Eagle editorial board. Afterward, the paper accurately noted I am advocating eliminating EDA even though it awards grant money to projects in south-central Kansas (“Pompeo would ax agency that could help Learjet,” Jan. 15 WE Blog excerpts).
They just don’t get it. Thanks to decades of flawed “You take yours, I’ll take mine” Washington, D.C., logic, our nation faces a crippling $16 trillion national debt.
I first learned about EDA when Fernandez testified in front of my subcommittee that the benefits of EDA projects exceed the costs. He cited the absurd example of a $1.4 million award for “infrastructure” that allegedly helped a Minnesota town secure a new $1.6 billion steel mill. As a former CEO, I knew there was no way that a taxpayer subsidy equal to less than 0.1 percent of the total capital needed had mattered in launching the project. That mill was getting built with or without EDA’s grant. So, I decided to dig further.
I discovered that EDA is a federal agency we can do without. Like the earmarks that created the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” or the Energy Department loan guarantees that produced the Solyndra scandal, EDA advances local projects that narrowly benefit a particular company or community.
EDA occasionally supports a local Kansas project, but it takes our tax money every year for boondoggle projects in 400-plus other congressional districts. For example: EDA gave $2 million to help construct the University of Nevada Las Vegas Harry Reid Research and Technology Park; $2 million for a “culinary amphitheater,” tasting room and gift shop at a Washington state winery; and $500,000 to replicate the Great Pyramid in rural Indiana.
The Government Accountability Office has questioned the value and efficacy of EDA several times. Good-government groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste have called for dismantling the agency. Further, President Obama’s own bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction Commission recommended eliminating EDA.
So why hasn’t it been shut down already? Politics. EDA spreads taxpayer-funded project money far and wide and attacks congressmen who fail to support EDA grants.
Soon after that initial hearing, Fernandez flew in his regional director to show me “all the great things we are doing in your home district” and handed me a list of recent and pending local grants. Hint, hint. You can’t say I wasn’t warned to back off.
Indeed, Eagle editors missed the real story here: Fernandez flew to Wichita because he is trying to save his high-paying gig. The bureaucracy strikes back when conservatives take on out-of-control public spending, so I guess I’m making progress.
Please don’t misunderstand. I am not faulting cities, universities or companies for having sought “free” federal money from EDA. The fault lies squarely with a Washington culture that insists every program is sacred and there is no spending left to cut.
A federal agency this large has not been eliminated in decades. Now is the time. My bill to eliminate EDA (H.R. 3090) would take one small step toward restoring fiscal sanity and constitutional government.
