Cincinnati Congressman Steve Chabot is swinging his budget axe at the timber industry with backing from taxpayer groups and environmentalists. Chabot's amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill up for a House vote would block a wasteful federal subsidy to timber companies logging in Tongass National Forest, America's 17-million-acre rain forest in southeast Alaska.

House members facing federal deficits of $400 billion to $500 billion in 2004 ought to clear-cut such corporate welfare. While the timber is in Alaska, the cost of this subsidy is coming out of taxpayer pockets in Cincinnati.

The amendment is co-sponsored by Republican Chabot and New Jersey Democrat Robert Andrews. It would block federal funds for more logging roads in the Tongass. Out of almost 3,600 miles of "official" forest roads in the Tongass, only 818 miles are open to passenger cars. The rest exist solely for extracting timber.

The National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers for Common Sense back the Chabot amendment. In 2002 alone, the Forest Service spent more than $36 million on the Tongass timber program, yet took in only $1.2 million in industry revenues. It's estimated logging in the Tongass has cost taxpayers more than $750 million since 1982, and deferred maintenance costs for roads there total $901 million. Federal giveaways hide the true cost of the logging business, and instead of federal dollars creating timber jobs, the jobs sharply declined in the Tongass since 1996.

Budget hawk Chabot has opposed other federal subsidies such as the "market access" program that paid big U.S. corporations to advertise their products overseas. Such federal spending was a waste in more ways than one. In Japan, U.S. ads featuring dancing raisins ended up scaring the kids. Chabot is hopeful, now that huge federal deficits have returned, more Republicans and Democrats will team up to block subsidies for private companies to clear-cut in the Tongass and other national forests. Alaska and national environmental/tourist groups applaud his amendment. Congress should axe special interest subsidies.