Crack Is Whack
By Wes Keene | February 1, 2010 | In Category: Economy
Those of us who listen to news in the mid-day were treated to an educational opportunity (a teachable moment?) On how to manage a checkbook. The session made some great points about how debt can really bury you.
The only problem with the class was its teacher. Call me cynical, just one of those bitter people that go to church, if you will, but I just don’t buy it.
Since national security always seems to strike up emotions, let’s use that as an example. We could try the 911 thugs for maybe a million bucks in Gitmo. As John Stossel points out, that kind of number is just a rounding error in Washington. Instead, our team of national security gurus has been shopping the KSM show to various cities around the country at a cost of maybe 200 million, if you trust Mayor Bloomberg and his police Chief’s estimate.
Doing that sort of expensive thing doesn’t give Americans much faith in your ability to pinch pennies when times are tough.
Spending money is like crack to a Washington politi-thug. However much money got them high yesterday won’t be anout today. Let’s go to the highlight reel:
- The bank bailout (no it wasn’t needed, don’t even try that), $700 billion big ones.
- The AIG bailout, up to $180 billion now.
- The union cash for clunkers program…wait scratch that, that was a Japanese stimulus plan. That cost $3 billion.
- An $827 billion stimulus plan (don’t forget, it works!)
- A plane ride over NYC for a photo-op. Yeah this one wasn’t *too* expensive, maybe only half a million, but it’s the thought that counts.
- Flying lots of congress people to Copenhagen for no good reason (at 2200 bucks per night per person for the hotel), $1.1 million. Personally, I find that figure a little low.
Now this is a ton of waste, and I haven’t even listed all of them, just the most expensive or divisive ones. However, I do have an idea for the KSM trial, and I think its going to be a win-win for everyone: Let NBC hold the trial, I hear they’ve got some programming holes these days, maybe around 10pm ET? As an added advantage, when the terrorists blow up NBC during the trial, no one will notice. Win-win!
February 16th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
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