Lott Says 'No!' To Porkbusters!

[Annie]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002911266_watch05.html

Capital Watch
Lott defends road project funded by Katrina bill


WASHINGTON — The powerful Mississippi Senate delegation is using a mammoth bill funding hurricane relief and the war in Iraq to have taxpayers foot the $700 million bill for closing a just-rebuilt rail line along Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

The track, running east-west through virtually every city and town along the coast, was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. CSX Transportation and its insurers just spent about $300 million repairing it.

Now, Mississippi GOP Sens. Thad Cochran and Trent Lott want to tear it up again and use the right of way to build a new highway along the congested coastline. Cochran is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, which approved the project Tuesday as part of a $107 billion-plus measure funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and additional hurricane relief.

Critics are blasting the move as a power play by the Mississippians, accusing them of using the must-pass Iraq and Katrina bill to advance a home-state project that's hardly an emergency. But Mississippi officials say a new road would be important to the future economy of the coast.

Lott vigorously defended the rail-line plan: "I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble ever since Katrina."

 

[William Joyce]

Trent Lott, like so many members of the GOP, isn't actually committed in principle to fiscal restraint. He's committed to being re-elected. It's in the nature of a democracy, it would seem. Everyone sinks to the lowest common demoninator. In fact, they fight for the honor.