Posted on 09/21/2005 5:18:08 AM PDT by OESY
Last week we suggested that cancellation of $25 billion in pork projects -- euphemistically known as "earmarks" -- in the recently passed Highway Bill would be a good first step to offset some of the cost of rebuilding the infrastructure in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast.
The idea of a pork-for-reconstruction swap had already been denounced as "moronic" by a spokesman for Don Young of Alaska, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee and proud father of the now-infamous $223 million "bridge to nowhere" near Ketchikan. Since then the White House and Congressional Republican leadership have been acting as if the cost of Katrina relief should have no impact on the course of an administration that has presided over the fastest growth in discretionary spending since Lyndon Johnson.
But thankfully, a grassroots Internet campaign and a handful of House GOP conservatives have refused to give up on the idea that spending cuts should be found to defray the estimated $200 billion federal price tag for hurricane relief. In the Senate, John McCain is proposing a similar pork-for-Katrina swap.
The Internet campaign picks up on the idea of revisiting the earmarks in the Highway Bill. A Web site called Porkbusters (www.truthlaidbear.com/porkbusters.php) helpfully lists these projects by state and directs readers to the appropriate Representatives and Senators to ask what they would cut. Around the country a flood of letters to local newspapers has echoed the theme.
And if revisiting the Highway Bill is too much to ask, how about a one-year moratorium on all non-defense earmarks for fiscal 2006?...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The entire cost of rebuilding for Katrina damage could be paid for instead of borrowing by taking the pork out of these bills.
And Republicans should suck it up and be the first ones to suggest just that, and then move forward to do it. They are losing voters every day with their big spending. I live in an area that attracts mostly retirees and that is ALL they are talking about and most of them have been voting Republican for over 30-40 years.
I thought that Dept of Commerce and Dept of Education and NEA and PBS were supposed to be the first items on the chopping block after the 1994 Republican congressional takeover....ah well, once a pork-lover, always a pork-lover....
The politicians are well aware of what they could cut but they are all spoiled, while telling their constituents that we all will have to sacrifice , they are the ones that need to act like adults and cut the crap already!
Talking about moon walks and things like that should be postponed!
Self ping for afternoon.
Funny. I could have sworn I thought I heard the President state Congress should cut its expenditures to pay for the costs. You would think the WSJ would know that rather than create pretense of opposition where it doesn't exist.
Look, here is the reality. The President will not stand in the way of cuts. He won't stand in the way of pork. If Congress sent him reduced budgets, he'd sign them just as he's signed their spending sprees. He wouldn't VETO either way. The obstacle for fiscal responsibility is/has been Congress. The question I have is whether they'll finally get serious about this, and I'll be interestedly following the submission of areas to cut spending given today.
And this congress has failed miserably when it comes fiscal responsibility. The president needs to step up and tell the American people that indeed the grown-ups are in charge and challenge the congress to send him a pork free budget. Do it on live TV and threaten to veto any budget that contains pork when the country is at war, recovering from Katrina and preparing for the aftermath of Rita. He'd hit it out of the park and his poll numbers would soar to post 911 levels.
After cutting the pork, there should be an arbitrary percentage cut from all federal spending to the states. Say 10%. Let the states decide how to apportion the cuts.
Looks like this is gathering some support:
http://www2.dailynews.com/news/ci_3047263
Hopefully today (Wednesday) the official plan and its sponsors will be unveiled.
The President is part of the problem. He has a line item veto but has given Congress everything they've asked for - including the pork which includes the "bridge to nowhere".
No, he doesn't. That being said, I've wondered why the president doesn't use his bully-pulpit more effectively. Veto the pork-laden transportation bill on live TV and then read off the top 20 most expensive pieces of pork and explain why they are pork.
From the link:
"On June 26, 1998, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, struck down the line-item veto law, declaring it unconstitutional. In the case of Clinton v. City of New York, the Court held the law unconstitutional on grounds that it violates the presentment clause; in order to grant the President line item veto a constitutional amendment is needed (according to the majority opinion)."
He thinks he'll pay a political price among voters and Congressmen if he actually tries to cut spending. That's why it keeps going up. He knows this stuff is pork, and everyone in Washington would prefer to pass it and not talk about it. Brave senators like Coburn an exception.
I didn't know the line item veto was struck down. Must have missed it. Without a line-item veto the bully pulpit is all W has ... and he's not very good at being a bully with the 'Rats, let alone his own party.
Yeah, my statement was rather rhetorical. I just wish we could elect a president will a pair of stones who would actually work in our best interests. Right now Bush is working on behalf of the GOP congressmen, not the citizens of the USA.
It is stupid folly to rebuild the N.O. mass suicide pit. For 300 years it has been obvious that N.O. was constructed in the wrong place. Even the French built on the highest ground.
The 300+ mile levy system is constructed with high silt soil. Silt lacks cohesion to hold itself to gether, a soil mechanics state of nature. The current levies have been soaking in water for weeks; they shall tend to slump apart= failure. Making them higher doesn't adrees the reason that they shall fail, not to mention the catastrophic riska from the flooding Miss. River and storms. Are we going to rebuild all levies from the bottom up with well engineered mateials?
It isn't clever to try to out-engineer Mother Nature. It is not even "right" - because it is idiotic. It is so stupid and wasteful of this significant fraction of $1 trillion of our tax dollars, all over a silly emotional edifice complex in the vain attempt to buy votes over a dying city.
MOVE the dam city! Keep the French Qtr. as an adult theme park. Keep the port with a road for the bedroom communities above sea level, Fools.
Terrorists can easily and cheaply blow the dikes, any dikes, costing our economy trillion$. Why isn't our federal government stating these obvious facts, especially in light of the long established criminal corruptions and profoundly incompetent Blanc-hole, Landrieu, and Admiral Nagin families? How stupid are we going to be? We cannot afford these death counts with hundreds of billion$ after hundreds of billions to keep rebuilding on this obscene folly.
Move over Atlantis, New Orleans has died, and should. If rebuilt, N.O. shall die its second death as a toxic Frankencity.
And what doesn't make sense about the Repub spending habbits of late - they are not buying any of the Liberal's votes, just loosing fiscal conservative's votes. They are cutting their own throats. The attempt to build the "compassionate conservative" image is a giant failure.
You are suggesting that the President stand up and tell a bold-face lie?
I thought the line-item veto was found to be unconstitutional? Did I just imagine that (not that I agree with that designation)?
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