I started reading this WaPo article and busted out laughing after the first sentence.
Senators keep stuffing new provisions into an emergency spending bill for Iraq and hurricane recovery, ignoring President Bush's veto threat to advance their priorities.
Yeah, right. Words are worrds, and this pResident doesn't know how to follow through. After 5 years of unrestrained spending by this Congress, including the rubber-stamping of billions of dollars for reconstruuction in Iraq which the American taxpayers were not supposed to pay for, do you honestly think these senators are going to worry about a little threat by a puppet ruler?
On a more serious side, there are a couple of things being included in this bill that I am curious about.
For example, the legislation includes $4 billion in aid to farmers and ranchers to offset rising natural gas costs and provide new relief from drought, floods and wildfires. It contains nearly $800 million in additional highway and transit funding and $2.3 billion to prepare for a possible flu pandemic.
I'm curious about the flu preparedness. I am under the impression that we have already set aside enough money to buy flu vaccines for the ultra and very rich. What else do we need to pay for to ready ourselves for the bird-flu?
Nevertheless, bush is quoted as saying:
This bill is for emergency spending, and it should be limited to emergency measures.
It seems to me that a good portion of these extras are for emergencies. Like the Kennedy measure to put aside monies for compensation when people lose their lives, or are otherwise incapacitated, from experimental flu vaccine. It's not like we don't know it is not that safe.
I wonder why the WaPo lead off with actual emergency measures giving the impression of being unnecessary spending, yet did not specify the authors and proponents of the "$6 million in aid for Hawaiian sugar interests and up to $500 million for a Northrop Grumman Corp. shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss."
Basically, the two paragraphs together give one the impression that the dems are run-away spenders, and the misnamed fiscal conservatives are the ones trying to reign in spending. Not including the $1.7 billion for NOLA's levees, the post compares $290 million earmarked by dems that is for emergencies (that is important) to the GOP's $506 million earmarked for special interests.
Based on what is pointed out, it sure isn't the dems that are the run-away spenders.