Q:What do you do when you thriftlessly spend all of the "political capital" you supposedly gain by stealing the 2004 election?
A:Buy more!
In the past week Bushco has signed off on two of the LARGEST bills in American history- both of them so filled with pork and kickbacks it prompted the MSM to do, well, almost nothing.
There was a time when Republicans were the fiscal responsibility party, fighting tooth and nail for smaller Federal spending. Not any more.
The Highway Bill
The two hundred and eighty six billion dollar highway bill Bush signed into law on August 10 is probably the most ineffeicient in our history. From the New Republic:
The initial price tag for the House version of the bill--introduced in 2003--was $375 billion, a number that relied on estimates by the Department of Transportation showing what we would need to spend to maintain our highways. But then the earmarking began, and every senator and representative had to have his share. The tone was set by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young, a House lifer from Alaska well-known for his sharp elbows and generous appetite for legislative pork. This time around, for example, his nearly $1 billion take for his home state included $100 million for a bridge connecting tiny Gravina Island to the mainland [with a population of 50] and $151 million for another bridge--to be renamed Don Young Way. In total, the bill--the most pork-laden in history, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense--has over 6,370 earmarks costing $23 billion; in comparison, the last transportation bill, from 1998, included just over 1,850 items costing $9 billion.
For anyone who doesn't like to do math, that's a $14,000,000,000 increase in bullshit. So what do the deficit hawks- brave protectors of our hard earned tax dollars have to say about such disregard to our national deficit?
Nothing, of course- as long as they get paid too. Dennis Hastert, a self-proclaimed deficit hawk brought home $1.2 million for a pedestrian bridge (there's a lot of pedestrians in his district near Kendall county- POP:54,544, 98% white) and $7 million for a pair of parking decks. Only a very small number of people voted against it, among them McCain and Judd Gregg.
The structure of the highway bill actually encourages members to spend money in ways only tangentially related to the bill's ostensible purpose. Each member of Congress is essentially given a lump sum of money in the bill to do with as he pleases, and it would be naïve to expect politicians to spend that money on anything but the most eye-popping construction projects. Some of the most glaring examples don't involve infrastructure at all, but instead are pure electoral propaganda. Young's trove includes funding for--no joke--a documentary about Alaska's wonderful infrastructure.
The Energy Bill
This new energy bill is clearly a blatant gift to industry, and almost everyone on both sides of the aisle is complicit in it's passing. Among other things, this bill gives the federal governement new eminent domain powers to clear paths for power lines- a long-standing demand of the nation's electric utilities. Think about that for a second...
As well as this huge win for electric companies, this bill
exempts oil and gas industries from some clean-water laws, streamlines permits for oil wells and power lines on public lands, and helps the hydropower industry appeal environmental restrictions. One obscure provision would repeal a Depression-era law that has prevented consolidation of public utilities, potentially transforming the nation's electricity markets.
The WaPo continues:
It also includes an estimated $85 billion worth of subsidies and tax breaks for most forms of energy -- including oil and gas, "clean coal," ethanol, electricity, and solar and wind power. The nuclear industry got subsidies for research, waste reprocessing, construction, operation and even decommission. The petroleum industry got new incentives to drill in the Gulf of Mexico -- as if $60-a-barrel oil wasn't enough of an incentive. The already-subsidized ethanol industry got a federal mandate that will nearly double its output by 2012 -- as well as new subsidies to develop ethanol from other sources.
It also:
-Allows drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
-Relieves the petroleum industry of liablility for the gasoline additive known as MBTE
-Exempts some communities from clean-air standards
-Exempts oil and gas companies from Safe Drinking Water Act.
-Streamlines Bureau of Land Management drilling permits (even though the Bush Admin. already granted a record number of permits on BLM land.)
-Authorizes seismic blasting in sensitive marine areas to gauge offshore oil reserves, and
-Exempts Oil companies from some provisions of the Clean Water Act
"This bill will allow America's most profitable companies to pollute our water supplies," said David Alberswerth of the Wilderness Society. "They're the kings of Capitol Hill."
And get this- as if you didn't hate Tom DeLay enough already:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) also managed to insert at least $500 million in subsidies over a 10-year period -- with the option to double the amount -- for research into deep-water oil and gas drilling, a grant that many lawmakers expect to go to the Texas Energy Center in DeLay's home town of Sugar Land. The bill also includes royalty relief for deep-water drilling projects, a strategy that helped jump-start production in the Gulf during the 1990s.
But here's the kicker. After giving ungodly subsidies to energy companies, and repealing any law that would hold them accountable for anything, this bill also repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 which blocks the owners of utilities from owning other companies and prevents mergers in the electricity industry.
Consumer advocates warn that the repeal will trigger a flurry of mergers and acquisitions by banks, oil firms and even foreign countries, leading to increased rates and Enron-style frauds. Supporters point out that the electricity industry will still be regulated by a slew of state and federal agencies. But both sides agree the obscure provision will transform the industry, thrusting as much as $1 trillion in utility assets into the global marketplace.
Not to mention the INSANE amount of conflicts of interest and power that Lockeed-Martin-Chevron-Time-Warner-ConAgra could have. So not only will a defense contractor with it's own standing army be able to invade a country to acquire oil recources for it's newly acquired oil company, they can also (thanks to the recent relaxation of FCC restrictions) purchase all of the media outlets they like and choose to never tell you about said actions while secretly price fixing the cost of food.
Welcome to the new serfdom.
And to top it all off, the nuclear industry is getting the bulk of the breaks from the bill. It is receiving BILLIONS of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks. We are giving them subsidies for research into new reactor designs, small particle accelerators and reprocessing nuclear waste (reversing current U.S. policy), and Ralph Hall (R-Tex.) even inserted $250,000 to research using radiation to refine oil.
But just in case the nuclear industry still feels as if it's palms aren't thoroughly greased, the bill includes $2,000,000,000 (Billion, with a "B") for risk insurance, and taxpayer-backed loan gaurantees of as much as 80 percent of the cost of a plant, in case new nuclear plants run into construction and licensing delays
So is there a connection between the bills? Why would a liberal Senator like Barak Obama sign off on such blatant crap as this Energy bill? Perhaps the 486.8 Million dollars from the Highway bill helped ease his spending and environmental concerns? Am I just being paraoid?