Monday, May 19, 2008

Farm Bill Feeds the Pork

From the Examiner:
Pathetic. Craven. Irresponsible. Unprincipled. Those and similar adjectives apply to every member of Congress who voted for the bloated, anti-consumer piece of legislative corruption known as the Food and Energy Conservative Act of 2008 a k a as “the farm bill.” President Bush has promised to veto the bill. To put it plainly, everybody in Congress who votes to override the coming Bush veto should be retired come November because they will have voted for a measure that is nothing more -- or less -- than a $300 billion giveaway of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money. This is especially true for conservative Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who brag about their fiscal rectitude.

snip

There also are inexcusable local-interest flimflams such as a $250 million tax credit for a private land sale in Montana and a provision to “sell” national forest land, necessitating a shifting of the Appalachian Trail, to benefit a Vermont ski resort. Worse -- and this is brand new -- House and Senate negotiators “air-dropped” several expensive provisions into the bill that neither chamber had voted on, including $170 million for salmon fisheries in California. Then there is yet another fuel subsidy, this one for “cellulosic” ethanol, at a five-year cost to taxpayers of $348 million. All of this, at a time when the federal deficit this year is expected to hit $400 billion and the federal debt approaches $9.4 trillion. In short, this bill is so stuffed that it deserves to be named by an agricultural term -- bull, uh, manure.
This, on top of the "Economic Stimulus" (read tax payer give away) simple means irresponsible.

No other word for it.

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