New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | November 23, 2004

Julian Sanchez savors the details in the omnibus spending bill.

Comments

|11.23.04 @ 6:29PM|#

[It] was drafted by the IRS, so our staff presumed that it was OK.

Let the record reflect that this was uttered by Rep. James Istook (R-Okla.)

Notice the R-Okla. part.

For the dense, that "R" stands for "REPUBLICAN."

That's right, the REPUBLICAN said that if it was proposed by the IRS it must be OK.

Remind me again why we're supposed to vote GOP?


Also, according to the article the bill is at 3200 pages. Yesterday it was 3000. A couple days before that it was 1600 pages. How many pages will it be when it passes?

|11.23.04 @ 6:31PM|#

If only wasting money Mariachi music was the real harm. One of the true nasties in the bill was a new double-taxation scheme -- authorizing fed. land managers to add "user fees" for the next ten years (read: forever)to hike, snowmobile, or whatever on public lands that our taxes already pay for.

Sounds like an interesting story of sleazy maneuvering, too, as reported here: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/food_and_health/fee_demo_action.html

Warren|11.23.04 @ 7:12PM|#

I've always thought it would be a good idea if house rules required all bills to be read out loud, in their entirety, on the floor before they could be brought up for a vote on final passage.

|11.23.04 @ 8:32PM|#

Law is made on a darkling plain, where ignorant armies collude by night.

Nice turn of phrase.

I like the idea of a "cooling off period" before the final draft of a bill is put to a vote, with a posting on the Internet so the pajamahadeen can peruse it. Like Warren's idea too.

|11.23.04 @ 8:53PM|#

"$150,000 Coca-Cola Space Science Center, Columbus, Georgia"

A company with $4,570,000,000 net income couldn't spare .00328% of its bottom line to fund its own fucking community science center?

This turns my stomach even more than gross taxpayer abuse that ADM profits from every year.

|11.23.04 @ 9:19PM|#

The Coca-Cola Space Science Center is operated by Columbus State University. The "Coca-Cola" part of its name reflects the fact that Coke donated most of the money used to build it in the first place.

|11.23.04 @ 10:05PM|#

$388 billion would buy a lot of omnibuses.

Daniel Carver|11.24.04 @ 2:15AM|#

I like Warren's idea, but how 'bout if we also could drop every bill from a height of say 12 feet on the heads of anyone who hasn't read the whole thing himself?
Not-Daniel

|11.24.04 @ 8:55AM|#

Thanks Dan. I see that in my haste I neglected to post my previous comment under the Dan Rather thread, where it belonged......

|11.24.04 @ 9:27AM|#

"The Coca-Cola Space Science Center is operated by Columbus State University. The "Coca-Cola" part of its name reflects the fact that Coke donated most of the money used to build it in the first place."


Ummm, maybe so. But why the fuck do WE have to keep it open?

This reminds me of the Walt Disney Performing Arts Center in LA that was built with a bequest of - oh about - six dollars and fifty-seven cents from the Disney estate and umpteen gazillion dollars of public money. Why isn't it called "The Taxpayers got Fucked Again Performing Arts Center"?

|11.24.04 @ 9:34AM|#

My congressman took the short omnibus to school.

|11.24.04 @ 9:34AM|#

Dan,

Then Coca-Cola should continue doing so. They created it and they should continue to fund it.

|11.24.04 @ 9:34AM|#

So any "pajama-clad" blogger wish to break this down by red/blue state? Seems like Alaska, yet again, is the big pork winner.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=71981

|11.24.04 @ 10:22AM|#

Ironchef:
That's right; one link I didn't include in the piece is this one-- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/politics/21spend.html

|11.24.04 @ 12:45PM|#

Julian-

Wouldn't you rather see all that pork go to rugged individualists in Alaska rather than wimpy urban liberals in NYC?

I'd much rather see the rugged individualists get the welfare.

Irony? What irony?

|11.24.04 @ 5:22PM|#

Ummm, maybe so. But why the fuck do WE have to keep it open?

Because it's a public museum and science center, owned and operated by a public university. So the public pays for it.

Maybe the government shouldn't pay for things like museums. But given that it does, it's hard to see what grounds you have for complaining that Coke "only" paid for the government's construction costs.

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