Fareed Zakaria has a great article about our President and Congress’s lack of fiscal discipline. People need to read this just to understand how brazen Congress is these days about pork:
Bush is not the only one to blame. Congressional spending is now completely out of control. The federal coffers are being looted for congressional patronage, and it is being done openly and without any guilt. The highway bill of 1982 had 10 “earmarked” projects—the code word for pork. The 2005 one has 6,371. The bill, written by the House transportation committee, is called the Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, or TEA-LU (in honor of chairman Don Young’s wife, Lu). This use of public office for private whims would seem more appropriate in Saudi Arabia than America. Perhaps next year’s bill will include a necklace for Mrs. Young.
The U.S. Congress is a national embarrasment, except that no one is embarrassed. There are a few men of conscience left, like John McCain, but McCain’s pleas against pork seem to have absolutely no effect. They are beginning to have the feel of a quaint hobby, like collecting exotic stamps.
The rest of the article is even better. Read it.
Perhaps it’s time that the Democrats just ran on this issue alone? Considering that the road in Iraq is full of crappy choices, that there really isn’t much different to be done in the Gulf States at this point (fixing FEMA correctly notwithstanding)? Perhaps, “We’ll do it cheaper and better” doesn’t only apply to the private sector?
