Yesterday, I posted a Juxtaposition of Priorities, which included a piece demonstrating that while the GOP is claiming they removed the funding for the ‘bridge to nowhere,’ they really didn’t. it seems that was not clear to everyone, so I will let Radley Balko explain it in clearer terms:
The blogosphere’s buzzing with talk that the infamous “Bridges to Nowhere” has been defunded.
This is smoke and mirrors. It’s a cheap stunt by the GOP to deflect public criticism that doesn’t really change much of anything. All the conference committee did was remove the earmark for the bridges. Alaska will still be getting the same obscene amount of money from the federal government, it’s just that the state won’t be required to use it to build those two particular bridges. It’ll be up to the executive and the state legislature to decide how to spend it.
Now it’s possible that the legislature, which seems to be at least a hair more reasonable than Alaska’s governor and congressional delegation, will nix the bridge idea. I’m not optimistic. But even if they do, the original half billion dollars earmarked for the bridges won’t go to more worthy projects like rebuilding the Gulf, or, better yet, back to the taxpayers. Instead of going toward Ted Stevens’, Don Young’s, and Lisa Murkowski’s pet projects, it’ll merely be redirected toward the pet projects of Gov. Frank Murkowski and the Alaska state legislature. And don’t forget, Murkowski, who’s wife owns land on Gravina Island, fought long and hard for this bridge, too.
Exactly.
Steve
Gov. Murkowski’s wife is, of course, Sen. Murkowski’s mother. There’s something a little untoward about a Senator arguing passionately for an earmark that would drastically increase the value of her own family’s property.
In a just world, if the earmark were approved, the local authorities would effect a Kelo-style taking of the property and pay Mrs. Murkowski pre-earmark value in exchange! Wouldn’t that be fun.
Mr Furious
Something tells me this manuever will actuallly be an even bigger PR disaster thantheoriginal earmark.
I hope Murkowski tries to land his fancy new jet on this bridge and it skids off onto his wife’s land and burns it all down, (after they safely escape the wreckage) and the whole lot of greedy Alaska pols find themselves “LOST” on Gravina Island.
Mr Furious
At any point in time, will voters be properly sickened by stuff like this? Ever?
Blue Neponset
Borrow and spend Republicans!
Question for John and other Repubs….how much of this will you stand before you vote for a Democrat or stay home on election day?
ppGaz
Well, they shrug at members of the Bush family with their arms around Saudi royals just before making speeches about “freedom being God’s gift to mankind.” I expect to see a statue of the Shah of Iran in DC one of these days. Maybe they can take that statue of Saddam and just paint it white and call it the Shah?
Alaskan land sweetheart deals seem like small, uh, potatoes, compared to what the Big Spuds are doing, eh?
People are busy leading their lives and raising families, and don’t always pay close attention. That’s why these asshole politicians can get away with a lot of their shit.
space
It’s funny. I’m often accused of being a “liberal extremist”. (Who isn’t these days? Welcome to the party, Brent Scowcroft.) But the irony is that if the Republican party actually DID any of the crap that they claim to stand for (or at least they used to to stand for), I’d probably be a Republican.
Reigning in wasteful government spending? Great idea.
Limited government power? I like that.
Skepticism of the actions of public officials? Very rational.
Personal responsibility? Sure.
Reasonable limits on social welfare? Fantastic.
Cost benefit analyses applied to government programs? Sign me up.
Market-based solutions to environmental programs? Wonderful.
Slow policy changes to avoid unintended consequences? Sounds prudent.
But, as should be obvious by now, the modern GOP represents NONE of those ideas:
Wasteful government spending? Bridges to nowhere.
Limited government power? The President has unaccountable power to declare war, detain U.S. citizens, and torture suspected terrorists.
Skepticism of the actions of public officials? Dear Leader is infallible.
Personal responsibility? Bush never admits fault. Nobody is ever fired.
Reasonable limits on social welfare? Cuts to soldiers benefits.
Cost-benefit analyses applied to government programs? Remind me again how cutting levee funding was supposed to pay over the long-term. How we should wait until global climate change is a certainty before we act.
Market-based solutions to environmental programs? Republicans opposed to carbon-trading schemes or market-based fuel standard increases.
Slowly changing public policy? Domestically: Social Security on the block. Foreign Policy: Implementing a reckless doctrine of preventive wars ignoring international opinion.
Needless to say, the GOP is a embarassing mockery of its once proud principles.
Mr Furious
Nice list, space.
John Thacker
Reasonable limits on social welfare? Cuts to soldiers benefits.
Slowly changing public policy? Domestically: Social Security on the block
Giggle. Boy, I’ve never seen someone expose their own contradictions so rapidly. The President proposed slowing down the rate of growth of Social Security so that it would match the rate of inflation, rather than increasing faster than inflation. He proposed it in a such a way that it would not affect the money earned by low-income workers at all, but would affect upper-middle class and wealthier workers, who have enough money to save. He proposed it because the current Social Security structure is absolutely unsustainable.
There has to be some sort of reasonable limit on the growth in Social Security, and that’s one. Yet of course it gets described as “Social Security on the block.”
Everyone’s for cutting “pork.” But they always mean somebody else’s pork. After all, shouldn’t Louisiana have done a better job paying for its own levees? Especially considering the massive corruption they’ve found in the construction of the levees. (Louisiana, big shock.)
I do feel especially sad for those Fiscal Conservatives who are looking for Fiscal Conservatives who are not also Social Conservatives. Sad thing is, there really aren’t any. All the GOP moderates who aren’t SoCons are big spenders, and the Democrats have been absolutely united against cutting any pork either. I’m not actually all that surprised, really, though; Fiscal Conservatism, much as I like it, has never been a big enough vote getter on its own. Anything you want to cut is important to somebody, and even trying to reign in unsustainable entitlement spending is always framed as wanting to make seniors eat cat food.
Lines
John Thacker:
Are you trying to convince anyone that one of the main Republican stage props for years hasn’t been the destruction of Social Security?
If we have to, we can pull out the big guns: Quotes. Its very easy to prove everything you said about Social Security wrong, because what you’ve done is post the talking points while not actually looking at the plans that were put forth by both the Administration and the Republican’s in Congress looking to capitalize on the seeming high point on SS.
Oh well, its been discussed and the American people have spoken loudly in favor of leaving Social Security alone and not forcing it to die the death of a thousand knives, but you can continue to believe your dogmatic view of it.
Steve
Anyone who says Bush proposed nothing more than a mild “tweak” to the growth rate of Social Security is being deeply dishonest.
Steve S
That’s not what got people opposed to his Social Security plan.
It was the fact that he also wanted to hand over a big check to the Wall Street brokers. I’m opposed to this, because I don’t want politics involved in the stock market, and the reason we have a social insurance is because the stock market can’t be trusted. This move would have created the 2025 Save our Seniors bill, where we had to dump a bunch of money in because all their investments went bad. (Understanding of course that money doesn’t really disappear in the stock market, it just transfers from one person to another. It’s a giant, legal Ponzi game.)
No, on the changing the rate of growth of payouts, I was with Yglesias and others. This would be a good move for Democrats. That is, let the GOP force that change, and then every 10 years or so Democrats would get swept into office because the GOP was refusing to give more money to seniors.
You guys are just so funny. You blindly follow the GOP talking points without spending any time thinking about what it means in the long term.
That’s the problem with voting based on emotion rather than logic.
Stormy70
Our wonderful Senate in action.
Far North
John,
I wish it were so, however, the Republican Legislature in Alaska in definitely no more reasonable than Alaska’s Republican Congressional Delegation and Republican Governor.
And what does it say about the average Alaska conservative that we send Don Young and Ted Stevens back to Washington year after year after year after year……….? Actually, what it says is greed, plain and simple. The average conservative in Alaskan is as unprincipled a voter as you’ll find in the country. As long as Don and Ted deliver the federal money, anything goes.
jobiuspublius
Isn’t Alaska a welfare state? Don’t they all get oil royalties and own planes? Why are we sending them money?