Where Are the Radios?

If you thought the passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act last year appropriated money to drop radios into Korea, you were as mistaken about the congressional appropriations process as I was. In fact, the NKHRA authorized appropriations that run into the tens of millions for assistance to refugees, democracy promotion, and radios, among other items. The vast majority of that amount has yet to be appropriated, however, with the notable exception of the $2 million democracy promotion grant, which is funding next week’s Freedom House conference in Washington.

The Voice of America and Radio Free Asia will be broadcasting that conference into North Korea; yet the North Koreans will have to try to find a way to hear it without the radios the NKHRA was supposed to provide them. Here’s what Section 104 of the NKHRA authorized:

. . . such actions as may be necessary to increase the availability of information inside North Korea by increasing the availability of sources of information not controlled by the Government of North Korea, including sources such as radios capable of receiving broadcasts from outside of North Korea.

So why no appropriation? My third-hand information (and readers may be in a position to correct the record here) tell me that while Congress is eager to provide the funds, it doesn’t want to tie the money up so that it’s not there for other emergency essentials. That argument, of course, could just about apply to any non-essential funding, and the term “non-essential” is also open to considerable interpretation. Let’s talk priorities instead. Here, courtesy of Citizens Against Government Waste, is a collection of expenditures that are of sufficient importance to warrant actual congressional appropriations:

Alaska berry research, $1,790,000;
Alternative salmon product research, also for Alaska, $1,108,000;

Did I mention that Sen. Ted Stevens is Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee? Yes, he’s from Alaska. Good guess. More from the ag appropriations bill, and be mindful of the fact that USDA asks for almost none of this money–the senators themselves jam it in.

$3,000,000 for the Jamie Whitten Delta States Research Center in Stoneville, Mississippi;
$4,900,000 for the Nutrient Management Laboratory in Marshfield, Wisconsin;

Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the senate’s all-time champion pork farmer, seems to have had himself a good year:

$4,418,000 for the GIS Center of Excellence at West Virginia University;
$3,638,000 for the Appalachian Fruit Laboratory in Kearneysville;
$860,000 for Appalachian small farmer outreach;
$711,000 for aquaculture product and marketing development;
$654,000 for agriculture waste utilization research;
$569,000 for water pollutants research;
$300,000 for the Potomac and Ohio River Basin Soil Nutrient Project;
$150,000 for turfgrass research in Beaver.

I honestly don’t know what half of that stuff even means, which is telling in itself. You don’t make things vague when you want them broadcast to the whole world. Kentucky, home of Mitch McConnell, continues the trend of the states with the most powerful senators getting the most money:

$3,000,000 for the Forage Animal Research Laboratory in Lexington;
$2,300,000 for animal waste management in Bowling Green;
$730,000 for new crop opportunities research.

You get the idea. I’m not going to pick through the entire agriculture bill, much less the rest of the federal budget. Two million dollars is walking-around money for a county highway department. The money is there. It’s the priorities that seem to be lacking. We can’t tell the world we’re sincere about the rights of the North Korean people if we haven’t evenhyuyu bothered to provide them with radios to listen to our grand spectacle next week.