I particularly like the part about cutting the budget for the Centers for Disease Control (page 9). Because it's not like we have to worry about epidemics any more, right?
I think this list is just posturing (I would say "just theatrics", but you might be insulted by the comparison :-). About half of the purported savings in these cuts come from repealing the highway earmarks and delaying the Medicare prescription drug bill. Is Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, going to give up the "bridge to nowhere" that Federal funds will put in his state? After the White House made such a big deal about the Medicare prescription drug benefit, do Congressmen expect that the senior citizens will forgive them for pulling the rug out from under them?
Bush & Co. made a big deal about gay marriage in the run-up to the 2004 election, got cultural conservatives all riled up and mobilized to vote, and then dropped it from their agenda as soon as the polls closed. This is the same kind of thing: Congressmen who want to score points with "fiscally conservative" voters can tout their participation in this "Operation Offset", but they're not going to do anything that would actually threaten the pork wagon.
I particularly like the part about cutting the budget for the Centers for Disease Control (page 9). Because it's not like we have to worry about epidemics any more, right?
Yeah...it's not like there's a potential pandemic in the making or anything. Sheesh.
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zarq
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Date: 2005-09-28 06:49 pm (UTC)I think this list is just posturing (I would say "just theatrics", but you might be insulted by the comparison :-). About half of the purported savings in these cuts come from repealing the highway earmarks and delaying the Medicare prescription drug bill. Is Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, going to give up the "bridge to nowhere" that Federal funds will put in his state? After the White House made such a big deal about the Medicare prescription drug benefit, do Congressmen expect that the senior citizens will forgive them for pulling the rug out from under them?
Bush & Co. made a big deal about gay marriage in the run-up to the 2004 election, got cultural conservatives all riled up and mobilized to vote, and then dropped it from their agenda as soon as the polls closed. This is the same kind of thing: Congressmen who want to score points with "fiscally conservative" voters can tout their participation in this "Operation Offset", but they're not going to do anything that would actually threaten the pork wagon.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 04:42 pm (UTC)Yeah...it's not like there's a potential pandemic in the making or anything. Sheesh.