Magnifisyncopathological

[Updates below.]

Spending bill swells on diet of pork (text quoted from the Yahoo edition)

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has defended the spending bill as "a titanic achievement in fiscal restraint" because it holds growth in discretionary spending to 3 percent.

The legislation provides $328 billion in discretionary spending for 2004, but the bill's total expenditures come to $822 billion when such entitlement programs as Medicare are included.

The fine print of the omnibus appropriations package, which covers funding for 11 Cabinet agencies, offers a glimpse of the way taxpayers' money is doled out according to the desires of individual members of Congress and the raw political power of the institution's leaders.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

Every Senator and House Representative who voted for this gigantic stinking mass of shit should be thrown out of office and personal assets liquidated to begin the atonement process for dropping this kind of omnibus spending bill on the backs of American taxpayers.

UPDATE(1/23/2004 8:55am)
Then there's the awe-dropping numbers being touted by a report that says the long-term deficit (i.e., what the government will be paying more than 10 years down the road vs. what it will make in taxes) will be - conservatively - $44 to $45 trillion. That the great bulk of those number will be going to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare should surprise no one.

I'm unimpressed by Bush's pledge to freeze spending. It's a joke, because he's only planning on limiting growth in non defense and homeland security spending to 1%. What he should be doing is cutting spending, deeply. I'm talking about double-digit percentage reductions.

UPDATE(2/4/2004 9:30am)
More here.

UPDATED 9/14/2005 12:06pm
Tom DeLay Should Resign in Total Disgrace

UPDATED 9/28/2005 4:41pm
So Tom DeLay has been indicted for conspiracy.

Yawn.

UPDATED 4/4/2006 12:50pm
Tom DeLay Resigns, Finally