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Bloated and Incompetent - Republicans need to be cut off.
National Review Online ^
| June 02, 2006
| Rich Lowry
Posted on 06/09/2006 5:02:54 PM PDT by neverdem
June 02, 2006, 6:44 a.m.
Bloated and Incompetent Republicans need to be cut off.
By Rich Lowry
The humorist P. J. O’Rourke famously said, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” That cynical, libertarian sentiment felt out of step after 9/11, when Washington seemed set to embark on a period of high seriousness of purpose. Nearly five years later, however, it’s clear that even homeland-security funding is dangerous in the hands of Washington lawmakers.
The Department of Homeland Security has just announced this year’s urban counterterrorism grants. The department was working on the basis of a new funding formula that replaced the old congressionally mandated formula that had more to do with pork-barrel, spread-the-money considerations than sober assessments of risk. But the new formula apparently is even stupider than the old, since it has dictated enormous cuts for the only two cities ever to be hit by Islamic terrorists, Washington, D.C., and New York City.
And so it goes inside the Beltway. It is often difficult to tell which of the many forces driving public policy is foremost at any given time. Is it mere bureaucratic senselessness? Or administrative incompetence? Or rank parochialism? Or flat-out corruption? None of them is good, of course, and their prominence in recent years is why Republicans are sitting atop a powder keg in Washington, in the form of the public’s disenchantment with an out-of-touch, dysfunctional, and self-serving federal establishment.
If there is an area that one would assume would be immune from Washington business-as-usual, it is homeland security, since the stakes are so high. But money is money, and many members of Congress can’t get near it without selfishness twisting their priorities. Republican Rep. Harold Rogers—the congressional equivalent of a drunken teenager if there ever was one—has spent years delaying the creation of a secure identification card for transportation workers by using every opportunity to divert funds to constituents and campaign donors back in his district in Kentucky.
No “emergency” funding bill for the war on terror or Katrina rebuilding is ever considered in Congress without it being festooned with senseless local projects meant to serve as campaign advertisements for pork-barreling congressmen. The emergency bills themselves are reckless fictions, since they are addressing entirely predictable needs and are in no sense emergencies. The bills are simply a way to get around normal spending constraints.
If Congress has free-spending parochialism written into its DNA, the executive branch is supposed to be another matter. But look for no relief from the Department of Homeland Security, the blundering bureaucratic monstrosity that is one of Congress’ sorriest creations. The funding cuts for Washington and New York are otherworldly by any standard, and indeed DHS officials seem to be living on another planet. DHS thinks that New York City has no “national icons.” Which makes you wonder: Have any DHS officials even visited New York City or watched any movies about it? (King Kong would be surprised to learn that he didn’t clamber atop a national icon, only a “tall commercial building.”)
Vietnam and Watergate created a sharp decline in confidence in our governing institutions. After a surge in such confidence following 9/11, the Iraq war, and the spectacle of the Abramoff-tainted, listless GOP, Congress is writing a new chapter in the history of cynicism about government. Everywhere you look there is more reason to shake your head and wonder, Where is the adult supervision in Washington? Here is the congressional leadership strenuously objecting to the FBI searching a corrupt, cash-grubbing congressman’s office. There is the Department of Veterans Affairs losing the personal information of millions of veterans.
Conservatives are supposed to believe in a government that does less rather than more, and that performs its core functions well. Republicans have stumbled on both counts, delivering bloated and incompetent governance. Their political strategy is to hope Democrats get tainted too by their mere presence in Washington. But Republicans should be worried lest voters confiscate their whiskey and car keys.
— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years. (c) 2006 King Features Syndicate
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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia; US: Kentucky; US: New York
KEYWORDS: conservatives; haroldrogers; homelandsecurity; republicans; vote3rdpartyandlose
1
posted on
06/09/2006 5:02:56 PM PDT
by
neverdem
To: neverdem
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. Or whiskey and car keys to a Kennedy.
2
posted on
06/09/2006 5:08:32 PM PDT
by
Screamname
(I`ll give peace a chance when it doesn`t need one.)
To: neverdem
Is it mere bureaucratic senselessness? Or administrative incompetence? Or rank parochialism? Or flat-out corruption? E) All of the above.
3
posted on
06/09/2006 5:11:30 PM PDT
by
Mr. Mojo
To: Screamname
what about cigars and a cheeseburger to a clinton?
4
posted on
06/09/2006 5:14:09 PM PDT
by
postaldave
(McCain & Bush, you traitorous !#!$!!s. you two are no different then ted kennedy.)
To: neverdem
>Republicans need to be cut off...
Not with the dems still in existence. There still is a difference and its a very big difference.
5
posted on
06/09/2006 5:21:44 PM PDT
by
tomzz
Comment #6 Removed by Moderator
To: neverdem
Giving money and power to government is like giving column space to Rich Lowry.
7
posted on
06/09/2006 5:23:27 PM PDT
by
mrsmith
To: neverdem
If the immigration bill is amnesty(which will bankrupt us and throw power to the dems) I see a third pary for 2008.
8
posted on
06/09/2006 5:26:57 PM PDT
by
John Lenin
(is a moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest)
To: Baynative
Every time I see Mary Landrieu on TV begging for money, I want to slap her...
After all, she wanted to punch President Bush...so, I guess physical force is okay in her book...
9
posted on
06/09/2006 5:29:17 PM PDT
by
Txsleuth
To: neverdem
$1 million for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative;
$550,000 for the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington;
$500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, North Carolina;
$500,000 for the Arctic Winter Games in Alaska;
$250,000 for the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, Iowa;
$100,000 for the Richard Steele Boxing Club in Henderson, Nevada
And in "Emergency Spending":
$700M for the Railroad to Nowhere;
$6 million for two Hawaii sugar plantations;
$15 million for seafood promotion strategies;
3.9 billion for farm aid;
$20 million to help New Englands fishing industry recover from a bad harvest;
And in "Agricultrue Spending:
$20 million for eradication and control for glassy-winged sharpshooters/Pierces Disease
$19.9 million for eradication and control of the Asian Long-horned Beetle
$6.5 million for eradication and control of sudden oak death
$3.6 million for climate forecasting in Florida
$2.5 million for cotton research in Texas
$1.9 million red imported fire ants, in Stoneville, Mississippi
$1.7 million for cereal crops in Fargo, North Dakota
$1.14 million for the Center for Innovative Food Technology in Ohio
$1.0 million for bovine genetics in Beltsville, Maryland
$940,000 for brown tree snake management in Guam
$878,046 for catfish genome research in Auburn, Alabama
$790,744 for coffee and cocoa research in Beltsville, Maryland
$668,570 for diet nutrition and obesity research in New Orleans, Louisiana
$490,354 for corn rootworm research in Ames, Iowa
$459,000 for oyster post-harvest treatment in Florida
$447,009 for barley food health benefits in Beltsville, Maryland
$406,000 for agro ecology in Maryland
$390,101 for honey bee research (Varroa Mites) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
$387,,976 for Manure Management research (National Swine Research Center) in Ames, Iowa
$373,824 for grapefruit juice/drug interaction research in Temple, Texas
$365,156 for potato breeding research in Aberdeen, Idaho
$244,077 for bee research in Weslaco, Texas
$150,000 for blackbird control in Louisiana
And in "Interior Spending:
$20 million for the Olympic National Park, Washington ;
$17 million for the Phoenix, Arizona SW Health Center ;
$16 million on Southern Pine Beetle Forest Health Initiative ;
$6.7 million for the Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development ;
$6 million for the Chesapeake Bay program ;
$5 million to acquire land for a Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania ;
$2.96 million to replace the lighting system at Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota ;
$2 million for the Environmental Systems Center of Excellence of Syracuse University for Indoor environmental quality and urban ecosystems sustainability research ;
$1.9 million for Allegheny National Forest recreation sites, Pennsylvania ;
$1.4 million for gypsy moth slow-the-spread research ;
$1 million for the National Hispanic Health Farm Workers Initiative ;
$1 million for construction at the Pacific Crest National Scenic trial ;
$1 million for the South Lake Tahoe wildfire protection as a grant to the South Lake Tahoe Public Utility District ;
$1 million for the Florida Department of Citrus Abscission Chemical Studies ;
$1 million for the Iowa State University project on mitigating emissions from egg farms ;
$700,000 for the National Zoological Park to provide for staffing for the opening of the new Asia I exhibit and for enhanced pest control ;
$700,000 for wolf monitoring in Idaho ;
$375,000 for a Central California ozone study, San Joaquin Valleywise Air Pollution Study Agency ;
$300,000 for ivory-billed woodpecker research ;
$200,000 for landscape work at Gettysburg NMP ;
$150,0000 for Northern Aplomado Falcon recovery efforts ;
$72,000 for sudden oak death research ;
$66,000 for the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation in Washington, DC
Need we say more? The Climate of Corruption infects both parties--our only choice is to throw the the entire bunch out and start again.
10
posted on
06/09/2006 5:35:49 PM PDT
by
Small-L
(I love my country, but I despise the politicians who run (ruin) it.)
To: Txsleuth
Every time I see Mary Landrieu on TV begging for money, I want to slap her...
OK, I dirty double-dog dare you!
11
posted on
06/09/2006 6:36:50 PM PDT
by
Sarajevo
(Life is a sexually transmitted disease. -R. D. Laing)
To: neverdem
The funding cuts for Washington and New York are otherworldly by any standard, and indeed DHS officials seem to be living on another planet. DHS thinks that New York City has no national icons. Which makes you wonder: Have any DHS officials even visited New York City or watched any movies about it? Rich joins Hillary and Fruit Loops Chuckie in demanding more money for New York so it can pay overtime for janitors in state agency offices.
12
posted on
06/09/2006 6:40:02 PM PDT
by
sinkspur
(Today, we settled all family business.)
To: Small-L
I noticed that none of the items in your appalling list of pork was earmarked for the state of Rep. Rogers - KY. Any idea, other than his opposition to the ID plan mentioned by the author, why he, amongst all the drunken sailors (apologies to our naval vets) was singled out?
I think I'll ask Lowry directly. It's amazing that this guy gets singled out while Sheets Byrd has virtually renamed WV in his own honor through federal pork.
13
posted on
06/09/2006 6:54:00 PM PDT
by
hotshu
To: sinkspur
Rich joins Hillary and Fruit Loops Chuckie in demanding more money for New York so it can pay overtime for janitors in state agency offices. IIRC, it's partly spent on overtime pay for NYPD antiterror details
14
posted on
06/09/2006 6:57:29 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
To: neverdem
IIRC, it's partly spent on overtime pay for NYPD antiterror details An audit found that the City of New York was paying overtime for janitors with homeland security money. Are they in the chain of anti-terrorism somehow?
New York is getting more money, by far, than any other city in the country even with the cuts, yet they poor mouth as if they'd been cut off completely.
15
posted on
06/09/2006 7:10:14 PM PDT
by
sinkspur
(Today, we settled all family business.)
To: sinkspur
An audit found that the City of New York was paying overtime for janitors with homeland security money.Do you have a link?
16
posted on
06/09/2006 7:22:54 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
To: tomzz
With RINOs in the Senate allied with the Dems and Bush to promote amnesty (excuse me, the proper PR codeword is 'comprehensive'reform) for the foreign illegal invaders, it seems that nearly all the true conservatives are in the House.
We in FL voted for Martinez because he ran on a platform that included secure borders FIRST and fiscal restraint. And what did we get? The biggest-mouthed RINO for Amnesty in the Senate!
If the GOP doesn't nominate someone in '08 who reflects the Reagan legacy, I'll write-in Tancredo. Is it better to waste time deciding between "tweedle-dum" and "tweedle-dee"?
17
posted on
06/09/2006 9:10:35 PM PDT
by
T.L.Sink
(stopew)
To: Small-L
That list sounds terrible, but Health and Human Services spends nearly two billion dollars per day. Defense spends 1.5 billion a day, and so does Treasury (much of it interest on the debt). That's five billion dollars every single day just for those three departments. Stupid as many of the listed items are, they are like the pennies that fall out of your pocket when you reach in for a few twenties - not worth bending over to pick up.
18
posted on
06/09/2006 10:13:17 PM PDT
by
Mr. Jeeves
("When the government is invasive, the people are wanting." -- Tao Te Ching)
To: Mr. Jeeves
"A billion here; a billion there; before you know it, we're talking about real money..."---Everett Dirksen(possibly never said it, but certainly would have agreed).
My point is that the plague of set-asides, ear-marks, pet-projects, and foolish spending only reflect the attitude that pervades Congress--"the more money we spend the more votes we can buy; the taxpayers are so stupid that they'll never hold us accountable; and those that know that we're robbing them to buy votes from the others have no voice."
19
posted on
06/12/2006 1:33:31 PM PDT
by
Small-L
(I love my country, but I despise the politicians who run (ruin) it.)
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