Buried in complex legislation, somebody’s gain is someone else’s loss

In Washington’s New Mood of Austerity, Legislating Turns Into a Zero-Sum Game

By JONATHAN WEISMAN, NYT

WASHINGTON — Two presidents — one Democrat, one Republican — tried unsuccessfully for more than a decade to cut back or eliminate a fund for closing abandoned coal mines that had become a piggy bank for Western states.

It took a highway bill to do the trick.

Buried deep inside the voluminous highway, student loan and flood insurance bill that President Obama will sign this week — so deep that furious Wyoming lawmakers did not see it until it was too late — is a provision capping the abandoned mine fund, and using the $700 million in savings to help pay for the new law. It is a clear example of how a new era of austerity in Washington is starting to turn legislating into a zero-sum game: somebody’s gain is someone else’s loss.

Highways got money. Bike paths did not. The Gulf Coast secured billions with a provision mandating that 80 percent of Clean Water Act penalties from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster go to gulf restoration. The roll-your-own cigarette industry was hit hard. College student loans will keep their subsidies. United States-flagged ships will lose some of theirs.

(More here.)