Republican Big Spenders

Newsmax.com ^ | Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004 | Ralph R. Reiland

[AbsoluteJustice]

"The pledge not to waste our tax dollars rings hollow," says Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, "given that in a matter of days he will sign into law a budget-buster that provides money for Alaska skating rinks, Michigan swimming pools and Iowa indoor rain forests."

Moore is referring to President Bush's pronouncement in his State of the Union address that "we must spend tax dollars wisely" and the complete lack of opposition from the White House to the mile-high pile of pork in the recently passed fiscal 2004 Omnibus spending bill.

In addition to the tropical forest, the new Michigan pools and the Alaska skating rinks, the Omnibus bill takes taxpayers to the cleaners, to the tune of $725,000 for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, $2 million for the Appalachian Fruit Laboratory, $1 million for the Alaska SeaLife Center, $300,000 for the National Wild Turkey Federation, $500,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute, and $2 million for a golf awareness program in St. Augustine.

The indoor rain forest gets a whopping $50 million. This faux paradise for parrots will be built in Coralville, Iowa, a town with a population of 17,246, according to the latest Census Bureau survey, or about 5,000 households. The $50 million, in other words, averages out to $10,000 per household, not bad for a place that doesn't even have an airport.

For taxpayers wanting to visit their money, Coralville boasts of a low crime rate (there was one murder, back in 2001) and a "Nightlife" section in the town's Convention & Visitors Bureau guide that lists 12 restaurants. None stays open past 9 p.m.

The "star attraction" in Coralville is fossil watching, according to the Visitors Bureau, thanks to the flood of 1993. "For the first time in the history of the dam, water overtopped the emergency spillway. The overflow lasted a month washing away tons of soil, huge trees, and part of our new road. When the waters receded the 375-million-year-old fossilized Devonian ocean floor was revealed."

On top of all that, with things still up in the air in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush says he wants to have a U.S. base on the moon, by 2015 or so, for "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond." This interplanetary escapade comes with a price tag of $50 billion per year in spending that will supposedly be pulled from other federal programs over the next decade, plus an extra $200 million per year in new spending.

Add to that, on the more evangelical side of things, the president's proposal to have the federal government spend $1.5 billion to promote "healthy marriage." Between the lines, that means we'd better stop thinking it might be okay to have a wedding cake with two little plastic grooms sticking in the icing.

But more on the spending side, it means federal abstinence instructions for anyone in need of what the president is calling "character education" – plus some communication courses for the poor, so they quit fighting so much and getting divorced and driving up the deficit.

The bottom line? The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the federal government will build up $2.4 trillion in red-ink spending over the next decade, a number $1 trillion higher than the CBO's estimate in August.

"The big story is Republicans have become a big-spending party," says Moore. "And I think the White House is really the ring leader of the spending spree."

With the federal budget costing more than $20,000 on average per year for every family in America and this year's deficit projected to hit a record $477 billion, Moore points to a philosophy in George W. Bush's State of the Union address that only promises to hike the level of unnecessary and wasteful spending.

"The State of Bush's Union has become in some ways a State of Dependency and a State of Entitlement," says Moore. "He has this unattractive tendency to believe that there's a government grant program for every problem that afflicts America. He wants to spend millions to promote holy matrimony. He wants to spend $200 million to fight obesity. Why can't we just tell fat people to stop overeating?"

The numbers tell the story. The average annual real increases in domestic discretionary spending were 2.0 percent under Jimmy Carter, a minus 1.3 percent in the Reagan years, 4.0 percent with George H.W. Bush, 2.5 percent in the Clinton years, and 8.2 percent with George W. Bush.

Ralph R. Reiland is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the B. Kenneth Simon Professor of Free Enterprise at Robert Morris University. E-mail: rrreiland@aol

[AbsoluteJustice]

How you like this? Republicrats are like their brethren the Demicans.

[bayourod]

You can tell it's an election year. Newsmax is increasing its attacks on Bush. Too bad they don't have the ethical decency to report the source of their funding.

[gawd]

vote libertarian

[Hank Rearden]

You can tell it's an election year. Newsmax is increasing its attacks on Bush. Too bad they don't have the ethical decency to report the source of their funding.

Yeah. $2.4 TRILLION. It's all NewsMax's fault.

[AbsoluteJustice]

They don't need to find "the source" it is public knowledge. Do a yahoo search for pork barrel spending or budget for this year and you will see this. everything that the writer wrote about is true. They are HUGE spenders. The kool-aid drinking is over for Republicans and get with the program. This wasteful spending should be boted and not condoned with the excuse wellll who else we going to elect? This keeps up I won't be able to afford the gas it will take me to get to the polls to vote!

[realpatriot71]

Ha! The Republicans are finally in a perfect place to spend as they want. Why? Because who in their base is going to vote for someone else?

Welcome to the "Brave New World"

[bayourod]

The question is who is funding Newsmax. Do you know you is paying them to attack Bush? Do you know which industry he is connected with and what products they want to impose exorbitant import duties on?

Try your Yahoo search on those questions.

[AbsoluteJustice]

"The question is who is funding Newsmax. Do you know you is paying them to attack Bush? Do you know which industry he is connected with and what products they want to impose exorbitant import duties on?"

WHAT?!!
Do you read newsmax? Normally they are a cheerleader for the Republican party.

Because they are pointing out Bush as being a hypocrit on spending this has something to do with who is funding them? I don't care if it is PETA that wrote this. Should it matter if it is true? you go ahead and follow this line of thinking, I'll see you on land as you follow your ship down in hiked taxes to pay for this "pork-spending"

[bayourod]

Can you tell me the name of the billionaire industrialist who is bankrolling Newsmax? Can you name the products he wants to impose exorbitant duties upon?

[OldFriend]

A study was done on the return Club for Growth got on their spending for conservative primary candidates.

VERY LITTLE to show for their money. After seeing that report I simply put their mailings in the round file.

[OldFriend]

NewsMax cheerleading for the Republican Party........surely you jest!

[Paul C. Jesup]

Yeah. $2.4 TRILLION. It's all NewsMax's fault.

The reporter on Fox News covering this was just... stunned at the ammount of money in the budget 'proposal'.

[AbsoluteJustice]

LOL

There is no man behind that CURTAIN!!!

Nothing to see here, Nothing to see here.

All my sheeple :)

[Hank Rearden]

Can you tell me the name of the billionaire industrialist who is bankrolling Newsmax? Can you name the products he wants to impose exorbitant duties upon?

Who gives a spit? That's a different topic.

Is the story true or not? I submit it's true. Let's focus on the problem at hand: runaway Republican spending sprees.

[Ol' Sparky]

Plenty in the base will either not vote at all or vote for someone else. Many of us are hoping for gridlock.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Cutting taxes while increasing spending will do it every time.

[Digger]

Let's focus on the problem at hand: runaway Republican spending sprees

So how do we focus on it - vote the same people back in at re-election? You know that's what Rove & the pubbies - Kerry & the dems will tell you. If you don't like it vote the other faction. If you take the "Two-Party Cartel" & make them meaningless by voting a 3rd party of your choice then your desires might get traction. W/o that you are just peeing into the wind.

[FRgal4u]

I will support Bush 150% if he veto the Omnibus spending bill. I refuse to pay for the rainforezst in iowa, the swimming pool in nevada, the blueberry fram in maine, the celebration of statehood in alaska/hawaii! There are over 11 billion dollars worth of trash hiding in the 380 Billion omnibus bill. 11 Friggin billions! That's 3 billion dollar more than the original energy bill Bush proposed in 2002.

[AbsoluteJustice]

I am behind you 150% and have no qualms with what you have written here.
:)

[realpatriot71]

Plenty in the base will either not vote at all or vote for someone else. Many of us are hoping for gridlock

Personally, I think we're already in the proverbial "hand-basket" . . .

Voting or not voting probably won't help much at this point IMHO