A Texas Republican, Michael McCaul, has the excellent idea of a law preventing members of Congress from using taxpayer money to fund parks, buildings, bridges, tunnels, railroad stations, or academic centers that are named after themselves. William McGurn has a column about it in the Wall Street Journal.
This is even a "read it here first": Back on June 28, 2010, I had a post here about the Frank R. Lautenberg Rail Station — which Mr. McGurn uses as the lead paragraph in his column — that concluded, "How about a law that says no federal money can be used to name anything for a politician until the politician is dead?"
I didn't have the McCaul angle here, though, and FutureOfCapitalism.com has so far been unsuccessful in getting the law passed. Maybe Mr. McGurn, with the larger platform of the Wall Street Journal, will have better luck. If it does get passed, it should be called the McGurn-Stoll law, because it would be hypocritical to call it the McCaul Amendment.
Meanwhile, here in New York, Mayor Bloomberg wants to rename the Queensborough Bridge after one of his predecessors, Mayor Koch, and the state is renaming the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel after a former governor, Hugh Carey. Mr. Koch and Mr. Carey are both retired from elective office, though still alive.
