If House Majority Leader Time DeLay was joking (as some have argued) last week when he said there's simply no fat left to cut from the federal budget then there's no one more at fault than him for failing to implement the cuts. He's in charge of the House Republicans, and there's no one to blame for soaring federal deficits other than the majority. Sure, the Democrats want to spend more, and on different things, but they're not in power now. Being more frugal than Ted Kennatee isn't anything to brag about, and refusing to face reality in the wake of Katrina is childish.
There's an old adage that no one in Washington can tell the difference between $1 million and $1 billion. Seldom has that Beltway learning disability been more vividly demonstrated than in the weeks since Katrina.When President Bush announced last Thursday that the feds would take a lead role in the reconstruction of New Orleans, he in effect established a new $200 billion federal line of credit. To put that $200 billion in perspective, we could give every one of the 500,000 families displaced by Katrina a check for $400,000, and they could each build a beach front home virtually anywhere in America.
Instead what are we going to do? Build the levees higher and buy more pumps? And borrow money to do it? Stupid.
Congressman Todd Aiken of Missouri complains that Congress was forced to vote on the $62 billion first installment of funds "even though we knew a lot of the money may go to waste." Mr. Aiken and several dozen other House conservatives proposed an amendment to the $62 billion hurricane relief bill that would offset at least some of the emergency spending by cutting other government programs a meager 2.5 cents out of every dollar that federal agencies spend.Was the amendment defeated? No. The Republican leadership would not even allow it to come to a vote, on the grounds that there was no waste which could be easily identified and cut.
Dozens of other reasonable proposals to offset Katrina's tidal wave of deficit spending have been similarly repelled. Mike Pence of Indiana suggested a one-year delay on the multitrillion dollar new prescription drug benefit for senior citizens. For 220 years, seniors have managed without this give-away; one more year of waiting would hardly be an act of cruelty. It would save $40 billion, but there were no takers. Then there was the well-publicized idea by Republicans and several Democrats in Congress to cut $25 billion for bike paths, train-station renovations, nature trails, parking garages, auto museums and 6,000 other such pork projects in the just-enacted highway law. It was torpedoed by the powerful committee chairmen who patched this abominable bill together in the first place.
The problem is that Americans have become whiny cry-babies, many of whom can't fend for themselves. We're becoming a nation of 30-year-old adolescents who don't have the nerve to move out of Uncle Sam's basement... but there's no real "Uncle Sam"... that's just what we call the middle class taxpayers (and their children's children's children) who finance the present with nary a thought of the future.
Even the Department of Homeland Security isn't without a lot of pork. La Crosse, WI's new Lenco BearCat assault vehicle being just one example of that.
I like how one writer put it: "... a new $32 billion per year law enforcement enforcement agency."
I think most Americans are concerned more with *what* their tax money is going for than what their tax rate is.
One more thing...
What Tom DeLay said was a joke? Ha! Republicans might be able to sell that to the hosts of the Sunday morning news shows... but I'm not buying it.
I've said it before, and I will say it again: The only thing that would make me less happy about the current administration and their antics is if I were a Republican. If that's Delay's (spelling intentional) idea of a joke perhaps we should forego paying our taxes for a year. You know, as a joke.
Delay is a joke. Sadly, not a very funny one.
Head off to porkbusters and register any pork you can find. There are entire states and territories with zero pork reviewed.
TML: Thanks for the pointed, I just posted about it.
Mark: I don't think he was joking.
Crash: Politicians are lame. I think you'd be a good politician though, actually.
MW: Yes, I know you don't. Ben Bateman seemed to (or still does).
I still do. I don't see how anyone can think that he wasn't, if you think about it seriously for a few seconds. Everyone in Congress is in favor of cutting pork generally---just not their own. If you try to cut someone else's pork, then they're likely to retaliate by trying to cut your pork. So while it's usually politically wise to take a general stand against pork, it's often politically unwise to propose specific pork to cut.
That situation is fundamental to every legislature. It must be so much a part of DeLay's day-to-day existence that I can easily imagine him joking about it with a DC reporter. If you need other quasi-jokes, everyone in Congress is against too much money in politics---except the money they receive. They're also all against corruption---except for the type of corruption they're involved in.
"My answer to those that want to offset the spending is sure, bring me the offsets, I'll be glad to do it. But nobody has been able to come up with any yet."
BB: DeLay may think it's a joke... but when he said this about government efficiency:
"Yes, after 11 years of Republican majority we've pared it down pretty good."
... it became clear to me that there's a disconnect between whatever DeLay thinks he meant and what the reality is.
An efficient government is, more often than not, a small government. The federal government has grown considerably since Dubya first became President.
You think DeLay was joking... which means you're giving him the benefit of the doubt because of your perception of what DeLay's day-to-day existence in Congress makes him. I wonder if you'd give the same latitude to a Democrat in a similar situation.
Mark, you're again leaving the context behind. When he says "we've pared it down pretty good," what does he mean by "we" and "it"? I assume that he's referring to the House and pork spending, i.e. region-specific spending used to reward or punish individual congressmen---not the entire federal budget.
BB: Actually, according to the article, he was referring to government inefficiency being "pared down pretty good"... when the opposite is true. Government inefficiency is at least as prominent as it ever was, if not more. Not helping matters is the Department of Homeland Security... "a $32 billion per year law enforcement enforcement agency". And soon there'll be another layer of government inefficiency: the prescription drug plan, because neither the Bush Administration nor Congressional Republican leaders are currently willing to delay its implementation, to say nothing about repealing it.
In any event, DeLay is out of step with reality... whether he's joking or not.