Spin Dry

Eschaton has the link to this New York Times piece -- Republicans want to save their precious little tax cuts and rebuild in the wake of Katrina. Cake + Eat, apparently.

Some of the things they want to cut:

...delaying the start of the new Medicare prescription drug coverage for one year to save $31 billion and eliminating $25 billion in projects from the newly enacted transportation measure.

The list also proposed eliminating the Moon-Mars initiative that NASA announced on Monday, for $44 billion in savings; ending support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $4 billion; cutting taxpayer payments for the national political conventions and the presidential election campaign fund, $600 million; and charging federal employees for parking, $1.54 billion.

Hm. I wonder if Congresscritters consider themselves federal employees? I'll betchya not.

Well, here's an idea on how to raise the money without cutting those programs or raising taxes.

1. Eliminate Congressional salaries through the the end of 2008, c. $255 million.
2. Eliminate salaries for the President, Vice President and cabinet through the end of 2008, $10.3 million.
3. Get the hell out of Iraq now, and divert those funds to rebuilding, billions.
4. Force Halliburton to do their rebuilding pro bono, to make up for the missing billions in Iraq, priceless.

Hey, it's only fair. These are the bozos who contributed the most to the screw-ups that led to New Orleans being ruined, so let them pay for the clean-up. If they don't want to raise funds by imposing a teeny-tiny increase on the top tax bracket for the richest Americans, well... fuck 'em.

Perspective? To raise a five hundred billion dollars to pay for Katrina would cost ever American man, woman and child approximately... two thousand dollars.

The cost of Republican greed, however, is and will continue to be much, much greater.