Another Mickey Mouse bill

Millions of American children aren't the only ones going back to school this week. The Senate returns tomorrow from its August break where Senators were pummeled by constituents demanding that they say "no" to more government.

At 5:30 p.m. on their first day back in class, Senators will be given a test to see if they learned anything from the people who elected them.

Lucky for the politicians, they already know the question on their first pop quiz. It's simple. Should Congress create a new government tourism advertising agency to provide corporate welfare to the U.S. tourism industry?

Believe it or not, that is exactly what the Senate is prepared to do.

This new $400 million program, which is part of the Travel Promotion Act, allows the government to pay for tourism advertising around the globe. It's a lot like "Cash for Clunkers," only this time the handouts go to mega corporations that want someone else to pay their advertising bills.

Writing in the Washington Post today, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) describes it this way:

The advertising fund would be controlled by leaders of America's tourism industry — giant corporations such as Disney, Loews and Marriott. Keep in mind, those companies are not in distress — they're thriving. Disney, for instance, posted profits of $4.4 billion last year, and bought Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion just last week.

In order to make this crazy idea less objectionable, the authors of the bill pay for the new bureaucracy with new taxes on foreign travelers coming to the U.S. Of course such a fee is counter-productive to the stated goal of "travel promotion" and it will most certainly lead to higher travel fees for Americans traveling abroad. The EU has already announced that any new fee will trigger reciprocal fees on Americans traveling to its countries.

And the K Street lobbying behind the bill is something to behold. According to Tim Carney at the Washington Examiner,

The Discover America Partnership hired former health maintenance organization lobbyist Geoffrey Freeman to assemble a lobbying army. Freeman got major hotels and theme parks to pony up good cash for his effort.

The partnership started shelling out $20,000 a month for the advice of former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Freeman hired polling firms, research firms, and public relations firms. The industry brought on new K Street firms, including Schwadron's.

The U.S. Travel Association multiplied its lobbying spending tenfold from $75,000 in 2005 to nearly a million dollars in the last 12 months.

This is typical pay-to-play Beltway politics. An industry coughs up a bunch of cash and it gets a brand new program designed to give it a generous return on its investment. And Americans end up paying the price.

We realize that passing this program may help some of the tourism interests in Las Vegas and provide a political benefit to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) who is suffering in the polls and could face a stiff challenger in 2010. But we hope some of his Democrat colleagues have the courage to oppose his boondoggle.

This question presented by this Mickey Mouse bill is a huge test for the Senate. Tomorrow's vote will show us which Senators learned something in August and which Senators are happy to return to business as usual.

UPDATE: The Senate voted to cut off debate and advance the bill on Monday, demonstrating that Senators didn't learn much in August. Only 19 Republicans opposed it. Here are the yeas and nays:

NAYS (19)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Enzi (R-WY)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL) Category: Uncategorized   Tags: None

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