"presidential yacht"? I mean, he's a president, not a king, what does he need a yacht for? He can buy that once he is out of office, peddling himself and his book.
Bit and ODDITIES for Contemplation:
OMNIBUS -- IT'S A MATTER OF PRIORITIES: In its massive $388 billion spending
bill passed last week, Congress set aside money
(http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/26/no_shrimp_left_behind/ht...
for crucial projects like making salmon baby food, blueberry research and
helping North Dakota shoo blackbirds off sunflowers. Lawmakers, however,
completely eliminated funds for Project Safe Neighborhoods
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/politics/02guns.html?adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=110199646...
, the Justice Department program designed to prosecute black-market gun crimes.
"It's a matter of priorities," explained House Appropriations Committee
spokesman John Scofield. "There are going to be things you can fund and things
you can't." (Maybe that explains why $2 million was set aside to purchase a
presidential yacht, but money for a program to track and intercept illegal
purchases of guns by kids was erased.) Joe Vince, a former official at the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said slashing these programs suggested a
lack of commitment to cracking down on crimes involving guns. "Across the
country, cities are starting to see an increase in gun-related violent crimes,
and Project Safe Neighborhoods was a way for local law enforcement to combine
their efforts and stem the tide...If you're taking the funding away at a
critical time like this, that just doesn't make any sense to me."
ECONOMY -- TRICKY MATH: Remember the White House pledge to cut the federal
deficit in half within five years? It's easy, as long as you leave the major
expenses off the books. The Boston Globe
(http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/12/02/bushs_plan_to_halve_federal_d...
reports, "With new bills for Iraq and Afghanistan, and President Bush pushing
tax cuts and an expensive remaking of Social Security, the administration seems
to have little chance of significantly shrinking the budget deficit." Analysts
"said Bush's commitment to lowering taxes while expanding large parts of the
budget makes it impossible to meet his deficit-reduction goals." The White House
forecasts for halving the deficit leave out all of the expenses associated with
military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, "which could cost the government
$70 billion next year." Also ignored: making Bush's tax cuts permanent, which
carries a price tag of $172 billion over the next five years and Bush's
proposal to privatize Social Security, which could cost the federal government
"as much as $2 trillion in the coming decade." |
