If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions then the federal government is the general contractor on the project.
Apart from borrowing money, can you name anything that the government actually does well? Our good friends in the U.S. Senate are hard at work, assembling an emergency spending package for Hurricane Sandy relief - a package that includes (so far) $150 million for fishery "disasters" in Mississippi and Alaska; both evidently hard-hit by the east coast storm. Chinook salmon, it appears, "have suffered" in Alaska.
And the National Park Service is slated to get $50 million for historic preservation; certainly a large part of their budget that was decimated in the hurricane.
Oh, there are a lot of things that simply must be included in the spending package (which, naturally, includes no provision for offsetting the costs), which is why Hairy Reed is rushing to get it approved - even bypassing the usual committee hearings to make it happen.
“I think part of the reason they’re trying to move this fast is they don’t want too many people paying attention,” said Steve Ellis, vice president at Taxpayers for Common Sense. “There are clear needs that need to be met, there’s no doubt about that. Unfortunately, when you overreach you increase skepticism about the entire package.”
Steve's almost right: many of us are skeptical about most government actions, these days - and justifiably so. We're getting kind of tired of having to read the bill so we can find out what's in it.
