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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, January 25, 2004

Inouye tops in steering home military dollars

 •  Sen. Inouye a master at milking the federal budget

By Frank Oliveri
Advertiser Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Sen. Dan Inouye steered $1.4 billion in tax money to military projects in Hawai'i between 1998 and 2003, making him far and away the most successful generator of home-state military money in Congress.

"I've been in the Senate 42 years," Sen. Dan Inouye said. "Unless I'm a real dud, I should have learned something."

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Inouye "is among the top five who can make it rain," said Michael Fulton, executive vice president of the Golin-Harris International lobbying firm in Arlington, Va.

The projects financed by the $1.4 billion that Inouye secured were not requested by Presidents Bush or Clinton, and were added during congressional negotiations on the federal budget. The money amounts to about $1,143.42 per Hawai'i resident.

Inouye secured $281 million for the state in 2003, a 357 percent increase over the add-ons he secured in 1998.

No other legislator comes close in landing home-state military money.

GOP Sen. Ted Stevens, for example, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, represents Alaska, which boasts two large Air Force bases and several army installations. But Inouye secured about twice as much money for Hawai'i over the five-year period as Stevens obtained for Alaska.

Inouye is aided by his position as top-ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, his status as the third most senior member of the Senate, and an exceptionally experienced and stable staff.

Even more important, he has secured key positions on Appropriations subcommittees that handle defense, military construction and homeland security, and he sits on Commerce and Science and Transportation subcommittees that control the flow of billions of discretionary dollars.

"I've been in the Senate 42 years," Inouye said. "Unless I'm a real dud, I should have learned something."

The Hawaiian delegation has been particularly effective in working together to bring home military initiatives.

"You can't tango by yourself," Inouye said.

The senator has been especially successful in leveraging Hawai'i's proximity to North Korea, which is developing nuclear weapons, and China, whose relations with Taiwan grow more precarious.

Military installations on Hawai'i also allow the United States to expedite the war on terrorism in the Philippines and Indonesia.

"It is quite clear that Hawai'i is the fulcrum in Asia and the Pacific," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i.

At 79, Inouye is in good health — he shares his vital statistics openly — and plans to seek re-election in a state where he is a virtual lock to win. But his colleagues in Hawai'i worry about what his retirement would mean for the state and the nation.

"May that day not come for many years," Abercrombie said. "Someone will take his position, but not his place."

Inouye's work for Hawai'i rates a different response from those who scrutinize government spending. David Williams, vice president for policy at the Citizens Against Government Waste, which gives Inouye a prominent place in its annual Pig Book, said the defense budget is rife with waste, and Inouye is one of the reasons.

"Inouye, on a consistent basis, has used his influence," Williams said. "Our biggest problem is the corruption of the appropriations process. The process has gotten us a half-a-trillion-dollar deficit."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., especially has been critical of the appropriations process. He pointed to what he described as $11 billion in unrequested programs in an $820 billion spending bill that Congress passed Thursday.

"I am sure my colleagues will again be surprised at the number of projects that go to the states of the senior members of the Appropriations Committee — Alaska, West Virginia, Mississippi and Hawai'i," he said on the Senate floor. McCain said the earmarked projects "illustrate a badly broken system in need of serious and comprehensive reform."

Such criticisms don't necessarily bother lawmakers who see opportunity where others see waste.

"It's just a difference in viewpoint about what is important," said lobbyist Fulton.

Citizens Against Government Waste "will walk this book around and have this guy dressed in a pig suit," he said. "Some members of Congress run and lock their door and hide, and there are other members who get their picture taken with the pig and want a press release saying they are the guy delivering the bacon back home."

Inouye may not pose with the pig, but he does put out an annual press release. This year, it says the spending bill approved Thursday contained $485 million in Hawai'i-related initiatives, including $281.2 million in defense dollars.

"I suppose if I ran in a big state, I'd be a good fund-raiser," Inouye joked. But he bristled at the notion that lawmakers should shun opportunities to direct federal money to their states.

"Why have a Congress?" he said. "Are we supposed to say aye and aye and be a rubber stamp?"

An Advertiser analysis revealed that most of the $1.4 billion in add-on projects that Inouye steered to Hawai'i since 1998 were for genuine military needs.

"There are few — very few — nonmilitary items receiving funding through adds," said Jay Farrar, a military analyst with the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. "In the late '90s, Hawai'i began to take on new importance with respect to force support as U.S. facilities in the Pacific Rim were cut or cut back for any number of reasons."

Almost all the projects that Hawai'i received last year were for research, development and testing; supplied money to boost healthcare for military personnel; or financed upgrades, operations and repairs at military facilities.

One factor behind Inouye's success is his keen understanding of the military's strategic needs. He argued for the C-17, the workhorse of the Air Force's strategic airlift, and Patriot missile system, one of the world's most effective antiballistic missile systems.

And with Inouye on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Abercrombie on the House Armed Services Committee, an intricate choreography helps Inouye succeed, Abercrombie said.

"Oftentimes they give me the credit, because I'm on the appropriations committee," Inouye said. "I don't care who takes credit for it."