A $223 million bridge is to replace a 7-minute ferry ride between
Ketchikan, Alaska, left, and Gravina Island. The island, right, has a
population of 50.
No, really? Get out! All I have to say to that is eat that
bacon-wrapped pork chop you greasy GOPers! Eat it and love it! Bring a
napkin to the table and eat it all. You bought it, and now you're going
to be voted out in 2006. Too bad. This is one dish that you can't send
back to the chef.
The highway bill seemed like such a good idea when it sailed
through Congress this summer. But now Republicans who assembled the
record spending package are suffering buyer's remorse.
The
$286 billion legislation was stuffed with 6,000 pet projects for
lawmakers' districts, including what critics denounce as a $223 million
"Bridge to Nowhere" that would replace a 7-minute ferry ride in a
sparsely populated area of Alaska. Usually members of Congress cannot
wait to rush home and brag about such bounty -- a staggering number of
parking lots, bus depots, bike paths and new interchanges for just
about every congressional district in the country that added $24
billion to the overall cost of maintaining the nation's highways and
bridges in the coming years.
Lawmakers say voters are stopping them back home to ask whether the
"Bridge to Nowhere" is a joke or whether it actually exists. It is no
joke. The Senate has already considered one proposal to scale back
the legislation -- an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to
cut funding for some of the projects special-ordered by Alaskan
lawmakers and use the money saved to rebuild the Interstate 10 bridge
over Lake Pontchartrain outside New Orleans. The I-10 bridge, a major
transportation corridor, was shattered during the Katrina storm surge.
Coburn's
bid failed, but it gained widespread attention and attracted 15 Senate
"yes" votes, a landslide, considering the political clout of Stevens, a
former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a formidable
force in Congress. In a display of outrage, Stevens threatened to
resign from the Senate if Coburn's measure succeeded.
Dems won the gubenatorial races. Can you say "voter backlash"? I can!
In a speech to a group of conservative academics and policy experts,
DeLay blamed the runaway spending of recent years on minority
Democrats. When he took questions, the first came from a senior
official at the American Conservative Union, who asked DeLay, "How
large does the Republican majority in the House and Senate need to be
before Republicans act like the fiscal conservative I thought we were?"
Given that Jerry Kilgore lost Virginia, probably thanks to a
supportive visit from George II, other Republican leaders are going to
drop the prez like a hot potato. John McCain will become the hot guest
to have at the table this year. Better hope that pork chops aren't on
the menu.
