Grand Old Spenders (George Will)

[Nightwing]

<snip>

Conservatives have won seven of 10 presidential elections, yet government waxes, with per-household federal spending more than $22,000 per year, the highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. Federal spending -- including a 100 percent increase in education spending since 2001 -- has grown twice as fast under President Bush as under President Bill Clinton, 65 percent of it unrelated to national security.

In 1991, the 546 pork projects in the 13 appropriation bills cost $3.1 billion. In 2005, the 13,997 pork projects cost $27.3 billion, for things such as improving the National Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio (Packard, an automobile brand, died in 1958).

Washington subsidizes the cost of water to encourage farmers to produce surpluses that trigger a gusher of government spending to support prices. It is almost comforting that $2 billion is spent each year paying farmers not to produce. Farm subsidies, most of which go to agribusinesses and affluent farmers, are just part of the $60 billion in corporate welfare that dwarfs the $29 billion budget of the Department of Homeland Security.

<snip>

That is $10.8 billion a year from five budgets projected to total $12.5 trillion, of which $54 billion is four-tenths of 1 percent. War is hell, but on the home front it is indistinguishable from peace, except that the government is more undisciplined than ever.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111601883.html

[rfranklin]

1. Yet George Will continues to propagandize for Republicans...

Perhaps he should shut his yap.

[hatrack]

2. Why don't you have a Coke and a smile . . .

And STFU, George?