Veronique de Rugy whistles as she walks past the Federal Budget, where boondoggles go to die.
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|11.13.06 @ 3:30AM|#
There was an article in Slate about a year ago on the misuse of "emergency supplemental appropriations", a term that drives me to teeth-grinding fury every time I hear it (http://www.slate.com/id/2126637). Since the supplementals are being used as a political ploy by the administration to avoid acknowledging the cost of their adventures, this is actually one area in which the Dems might help out the fiscal conservatives in the immediate future. In the further future, of course, there will be a Dem administration that sees the benefits of such legerdemain to hide its adventures...
D.A. Ridgely|11.13.06 @ 8:52AM|#
Ms de Rugy's analysis is correct; however, as a practical matter, the focus of her concern is rather like complaining that, having robbed the bank, the criminals knocked off a liquor store or two during the getaway.
Omnibus bills are the bigger problem. Congress should, at the very least, be required to vote on agency specific appropriations and authorizations and prohibited from attaching irrelevant spending riders. (That would take too much time, you say? Congress would have to spend more time in chambers voting on specific bills for all those agencies, you say? Hmmm, maybe if there were fewer agencies...)
Similarly, much as I hate to grant even more power to the already imperial presidency, the line item veto is long overdue, requiring Congress to have an up or down vote on each specific line item vetoed.
Of course, none of this would eliminate horse trading for pork (or pork trading for horse?), but it would at least make sorting out the waste more visible.
|11.13.06 @ 9:40AM|#
It's certainly true that the supplementals - even now - are still a fraction of the total spending... the problem is that their use allows the administration to shift a large chunk of funding (esp politically sensitive funding) 'off the books'.
Larry A|11.13.06 @ 12:35PM|#
Isn't it just huge irony that the folks in Congress think the folks at Enron should be in jail?