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President Bush has many problems. But one of them is not writer’s cramp. Despite ample provocation from Congress, he has yet to wield his veto pen against any increase in spending—no matter how outrageous.

A disgraceful case in point is the recently-enacted highway bill, which the president praised as he signed it into law on August 10th.

Never mind that total spending exceeded Mr. Bush’s alleged limit by tens of billions of dollars. This bill sets a record for pork that, I hope, will never be broken by including over 6,300 earmarks—which is a polite euphemism for complete wastes of money. Like building roads to nowhere, and bridges to places no one lives. Highway robbery, you might call it.

Senator John McCain was one of the few members of Congress to cry out against his colleagues’ shamelessness. He called ironic attention to the $2.3 million for improving the landscape along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California. What, he asked, might Ronald Reagan have thought of that?

But my pet peeve is further north—and 100 times as large. It’s the $223 million allocated to building a bridge to an Alaskan island with 50 inhabitants. That comes to about 4 ½ million dollars per person!

Here’s a suggestion that would save the American taxpayer about $170 million. Let’s offer each of those 50 deserving Alaskans a simple choice: We can build the bridge, or give you $1 million in cash. Which do you think they’d take?

I’m Alan Blinder.