Some reform proposals are so modest they have scant hope of passing. Why? Because the people who pass the bills are so immodest.
Congressional egos would be severely bruised if Representative Michael McCaul’s proposal were enacted. His bill would prohibit lawmakers from erecting monuments to themselves glorifying the fact that they have dedicated huge amounts of taxpayer dollars to the erecting of monuments to themselves.
McCaul says that these “monuments to me” are emblems of arrogance and “contribute to both political corruption and excessive spending.” Such contributions are prolific.
Remember Senator Robert C. Byrd (1917-2010), “serving” in Washington for more than half a century? Well, the construction industry in West Virginia sure does. Wikipedia devotes an entire entry just to listing the buildings and transportation and other projects named after the self-aggrandizing Senator Byrd. He was always eager to lug as much pork to his state as he could, and most of it is stamped with his immortal cognomen. There’s even a Robert C. Byrd highway to nowhere. A Wall Street Journal article by William McGurn gives a laundry list of other sites named after congressmen alive and in office when their names got slapped on.
The ban should be enacted. Even if this reform is small and symbolic, the abuse it addresses is real. And McCaul wants to know: “If we can’t do the little, obvious things, how are the people going to trust us on the big ones?”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “Monuments to Megalomania”
[…] Monuments to Megalomania. […]
It seems all politicians have an “Ediface complex.” I am afraid that maybe they won’t want to “serve” if they cannot build monuments to them selves. At least we can only hope so.
It’s an “In your face” complex.
And they get incensed if they get called on it.
They would “serve” without monuments. They would “serve” for only token pay or no pay. Because the power available is essentially a license to steal.
They would get incensed, but not enough to stop “serving”.
I am truly blessed to have Michael McCaul as my congressman. I am 100% for term limits, but losing Rep. McCaul would be a great loss to my district, Texas and the U.S. Congress.
This is a no-brainer. IMHO, politicians shouldn’t be allowed to have anything named after them until they are deceased. It’s only then that we can judge which are truly deserving of the honor.