Looking back at the transportation bill passed in July, unnecessary spending was a bi-partisan problem. Nearly every lawmaker on the Hill saw an opportunity to bring home some highway money for their district — and they took it.
But with Hurricane Katrina relief poised to cost as much as $200 billion, it’s interesting to note which party’s leaders are prepared to go back and reconsider those pork projects and which aren’t.
After Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she would be willing to forgo her highway bill earmarks to help pay for Katrina, [House Majority Leader Tom] DeLay was asked if he would do the same.
“I don’t know about that,” DeLay said.
Exactly. It’s time for real sacrifice, the Dem House leader is prepared to give up some of the pork she requested for her district, but DeLay won’t do the same.
Of course, it’s not just DeLay. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), whose penchant for pork is legendary, had an even less tasteful response. When told that he secured $223 million for a bridge to nowhere in his state, and perhaps, in light of intense budget pressures, he could redirect his pork to better uses, Young was indignant.
“They can kiss my ear!” Young boomed when Sam Bishop, Washington correspondent for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, asked him about the many pleas to redirect the bridge money. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Remind me, which is the party with the reputation for reckless federal spending? At what point do we get to start using the phrase “tax and spend conservatives”?