Bush Spending Money Like a Drunken Sailor
Bush nearly triples request for tsunami relief (Cox)
President Bush said yesterday he would ask Congress for $950 million for tsunami relief, nearly tripling U.S. aid pledged for victims of the monstrous seismic wave that swept the Indian Ocean in December. The beefed-up aid proposal, to be part of a supplemental budget request to go to Congress later this week, includes money to cover emergency relief efforts as well as new funding to help rebuild bridges, roads, schools and housing destroyed in a natural disaster that took some 150,000 lives.
In a statement, Bush said the money would help restore communities and rebuild “vital infrastructure that re-energizes economies and strengthens societies” in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries that bore the brunt of the tsunami’s wrath.
US plans $400m reward for allies (BBC)
US President George W Bush is asking Congress for $400m (£215m) to reward a number of countries that sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. A White House spokesman said the money would “assist nations which have taken political and economic risks”. The fund is part of a $80bn war funding request President Bush will send to Congress next week. […] Poland, for instance, which has 2,500 troops in Iraq, will receive $100m. […] The fund, called the Solidarity Initiative, will benefit countries “promoting freedom around the world”, Mr McClellan said in a statement. […] Officials declined to say which other nations would benefit, but there has been suggestion that the fund will help to Eastern European nations, such as Ukraine, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic states.
These funds are going to good causes but one wonders how profligate our spending would be were we not experiencing record (in raw numbers, not real dollars or percentage of GDP) budget deficits.
Hey! I’ll have you know I always try to get other people to buy me drinks, so by the time I’m drunk, I’m not spending any money!
Heh.
Bush clearly has a loose-loose situation here. If you cut spending you are “hurting those who need the money the most.” If you spend money on disaster relief then you are spending money like a drunken sailor.
James;
You may want to temper this a bit.
Consider; a goodly chunk of the increase is not in the form of cash, but is rather in the form of vouchers against the military and other resources already spent in the initial aid process.
The budget is one of those areas where Bush is pretty weak, and always has been.
He needs to find his veto pen, but even more the GOP in congress needs to rediscover their fiscal conservative roots, and practice some restraint.
While Bush seems happy to spend, I don’t see congress all that happy to control it either.
At Democratic National HQ, singing can be heard:
Ooooohhhh, throw him in the bilge and make him drink it….