The case for pork

Harry Reid is not popular in Nevada. All the polls say so. But in his quest for re-election, Reid has a compelling trump card: As the Senate majority leader, he's the nation's most powerful legislator, an advantage that many Nevadans -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- believe would be foolish to throw away.

That, alone, may be enough to allow Reid to skate past Republican challenger Sharron Angle in November. And yet, when people say Reid should be re-elected simply because he's the Senate majority leader, I immediately start trying to gauge how much Nevada has benefited from his leadership position. All things considered, I'd have to conclude: not enough.

We know the basics. Reid has all but killed the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. He has protected the gambling industry from federal meddling. He has buried efforts to regulate and tax the mining industry.

But I can't help but think that if a Nevada senator is the nation's most powerful legislator, the state should be getting a helluva lot more out of the deal.

Nevada has one of the three worst state economies in the country. It has the nation's highest unemployment rate. Its real estate market is a disaster. Nevada is far from the nation's leader in renewable energy production. Nevada is not attracting new industry. The state government is looking at a $3 billion budget deficit next year. And various studies rank Nevada last among the 50 states in federal tax dollars returned per capita.

It's not fair to lay all this on Reid. Some of it's the unavoidable result of a bad global economy. Some of it's the product of shortsighted political decisions at the state and local levels.

Still, I think it's fair to ask what Reid has done to address these crises. The primary federal response has been the stimulus package. But guess what: Nevada basically got screwed in the stimulus bill. Reid blamed the state leadership for some of the shortfalls, but that was a weak answer. If you're the Senate majority leader and your state's economy is in shambles, you gotta make sure to take care of your state.

Is this pork-barrel politics? Damn straight. For more than 100 years, much of the significant progress in Nevada has come through various types of federal assistance. Some of it came by luck of timing or geography, but a lot of good and important stuff resulted from Nevada politicians pulling strings to make things happen. That's how it works, and it's particularly important if you're a small state.

Why is Las Vegas having such a hard time getting a bullet train built to Southern California? People have been working on this since the mid-1970s. But when the stars finally seem to be aligning in favor of federal funding for a Las Vegas-to-Anaheim train, Reid abandons the plan and throws his support to a privately funded train to, uh, Victorville. It's an oversimplification of the process, but I think it's reasonable to expect a Senate majority leader to make this kind of project happen for his home state.

What about the Nevada Test Site? The nuclear test range has been essentially mothballed for years. Ever since, there's been chatter about bringing in new projects to fill the void. But this hasn't happened. I'm sure Reid has worked on it, but to no avail.

Green energy? There's been gobs of talk about Nevada becoming the "Saudi Arabia of solar energy." It might happen someday, but in the short term other states are running circles around us.

But worse than all that: There are few signs that Nevada's economy is going to recover anytime soon. What does Reid plan to do about this? As the Senate majority leader, he ought to be working on major initiatives to lift Nevada out of its dire position.

I've often thought that Reid's secret weapon in this campaign -- his version of an "October surprise" -- will be some huge project that will transform Nevada's economy. But this is idle speculation. More likely, there's no secret weapon.

The Reid forces who see this column could respond with a laundry list of things the senator has done for the state and reasons why other things haven't happened. His website includes a long list of legislative "accomplishments."

But what I and, I believe, many other Nevadans are looking for -- longing for -- is tangible and compelling evidence that Reid's position is a huge asset.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who died this week at age 92, was a master of bringing home the bacon. "Byrd used the position in large part to battle persistent poverty in West Virginia," The New York Times wrote. "[He] brought the state billions of dollars for highways, federal offices, research institutes and dams."

Critics dubbed Byrd the "king of pork." But he didn't apologize for steering federal money and projects to his state, and West Virginians weren't among those complaining.

Reid, unfortunately, can't be criticized as a member of pork royalty. On most levels, Nevada gets by on table scraps.

The one thing Reid can say: Table scraps are still more than his opponent could muster.

Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@reviewjournal.com) is the Review-Journal's director of community publications. His column appears Friday.