Thursday, May 22, 2008

What Does Gulf Coast Relief, NASA and Billions in Pork Have To Do with the War in Iraq?

Everything if you are the free-spending Congress.

But the committee's plan contained so many smaller items favored by senators in both parties — including money for Gulf Coast Hurricane recovery, NASA, and additional food and drug safety inspectors — that even GOP conservatives such as Larry Craig and Mike Crapo of Idaho rebuffed the White House. The duo were strong supporters of $400 million to subsidize schools in rural counties hit hard by declines in timber revenues.

The bill also contained $490 million for grants to local police departments, $451 million to repair roads damaged by natural disasters, $200 million for the space shuttle program, and $400 million for National Institutes of Health research projects.

And more and more and more pork.

Remember how Democrats argued about how much money George Bush and a Republican-led Congress blew? Is this merely an attempt to regain the tax-and-spend title?