By studying how Congress funds roads, we can learn a lot about America. We’ll see how our politicians transfer wealth to protect their job security.

Last Friday’s passage of the highway bill demonstrated how politicians have perfected plundering without violence. In contrast to Zimbabwe where Mugabe’s thugs use machetes and bulldozers to transfer wealth, our senators and representatives do so with special legislative markups. Lest you think me wholly negative, I recognize this process has the great advantage of economizing on bloodshed. Here’s an example of how it works.

The new highway bill sends over $286 billion to the states. The 91-4 Senate vote came shortly after the House approved the measure, 412-8. How does the price tag continue to balloon?

Here’s the key. It’s easy to spend other people’s money, and politicians seeking incumbency are particularly adept at doing so. Their 1,752-page bill specifies thousands of specific projects requested by individual members. Also know as earmarks (or pork), these are funding authorizations for projects ranging from community centers to paths around Bozeman’s public library.

Senators and representatives mark up the bill with projects favoring their districts; failing to do so is costly. Back in 1994, Rep. Sue Myrick of Charlotte, N.C., a fiscal conservative, became disenchanted with the process. “It makes you not want to be here. It just makes you want to leave.” She was infuriated because so much of the money provided by this bill was not relevant to highway improvement.

When Myrick went before the closed-door House Republican Conference and condemned this outrage, the response was cold. She learned the importance of going along. This time she voted Yes on the 2005 Highway Bill.

The 1982 highway bill contained only 10 earmarks. The 1991 bill, the last highway bill passed under Democratic leadership, contained 538 such projects. But the addiction to pork has grown so large that, under GOP leadership, this bill is festooned with 6,376. Neither party is immune to the temptations to reward constituencies by transferring tax money to them.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, is shameless. In rural Alaska, a bridge will replace a ferry connecting the town of Ketchikan (pop. 8,000) to Gravina Island (pop. 50). It’s the “bridge to nowhere,” but the Alaska Department of Transportation estimates the cost at $315 million. Taxpayers for Common Sense states this bridge will be nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge and taller than the Brooklyn Bridge. Another $200 million bridge near Anchorage is officially named “Don Young’s Way.”

The bill was delayed in the House after lawmakers objected to a provision added by our own Sen. Baucus. Max tried to reopen a runway at the Malmstrom Air Force Base that the Pentagon had closed. Baucus asserted “This isn’t just a highway bill.... It’s a jobs bill.”

Max, you’re right; it’s your job at stake. Multiply his behavior by 100 senators and 435 representatives, and you’ll understand how our budget deficits grow.

Whatever their rhetoric, the GOP does not act as a principled party that actually limits governmental spending. Consider former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, a Ph.D. economist and self-styled “conservative” Republican. When seeking re-election, he bragged, “I’m carrying so much pork [to Texas], I’m beginning to get trichinosis.” Phil well understood the political calculus of concentrating benefits and diffusing costs.

From Barry Goldwater through Ronald Reagan, many Republicans, including Phil Graham and Sue Myrick, campaigned as fiscal libertarians, i.e., they claimed to favor limited government and lower taxes.

There is a party that takes a principled position on limiting the size of government, the Libertarians.

However, relying on professed Libertarian principles to constrain political predation is as naïve as relying on the Quaker Church for national defense. While Quakers renounce the force of arms to achieve political goals, Libertarians urge us to resist temptations to use government power to transfer wealth and opportunities. These principles may be admirable, but they win neither wars nor elections. A politician who actually votes libertarian is risking a Darwin Award, not re-election.