Remember the $600 hammer? Back in the ’80s, defense contractors realized that nobody was looking and inflated their prices. Taxpayers paid through the nose, until those shady practices hit the spotlight. It’s time to break out that spotlight again.

There are plans afoot to build an impressive bridge, higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and as long as the Golden Gate. More impressive is the cost: the pending highway bill includes $120 million to erect this engineering marvel between Ketchikan, Alaska, population 8,000, and lonely Gravina Island, home to 50 souls.

Yup: $120 million for a bridge to an island that has 50 people on it. But that’s nothing compared to the bridge being built between the Port of Anchorage and Mackenzie Port. Whats that? You’ve never heard of Mackenzie Port? You don’t know why it needs a $200 million bridge? Maybe that’s because Mackenzie Port has a permanent population of one. Not 1,000, not 100; just one.

Representative Don Young, the spendthrift responsible for Alaska’s newest goldrush, brags, “If I had not done fairly well for our state I’d be ashamed of myself.” Alaska small businessman Mike Salle explains it more honestly: “Everyone knows it’s just a boondoggle that we’re getting because we have a powerful congressman.” The defense contractors who charged Americans $600 for hammers were crooks. What do you call a Congressman who charges $320 million for two bridges to nowhere?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.