Wednesday, November 28, 2001
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Wednesday, November 28, 2001 |
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Sept. 11 is turning into a handy excuse By DAVE HAMRICK I keep looking for it, but I haven't yet seen the news story about the health of the federal budget in the wake of Sept. 11. It seems logical to assume that the surpluses we were so happy about have evaporated and the government has moved back into a place where it is snug and comfortable ... the red. Much of the additional spending is necessary, of course. Bombs and missiles aren't the bargain they once were, and rebuilding New York and the Pentagon will be expensive too. And on the other side of the equation, even if the economic downturn turns out to be short-lived, revenues for this year will be down. But I suspect that if we don't keep an eye on them, congressmen are going to be spend-happy in ways that have nothing to do with 9/11. They've already voted themselves a $4,900 pay raise in spite of the weak economy, and the House passed a farm bill that adds $73 billion in new subsidies, even adding new products to the list of things subsidized. Funny, but it's the Republican-led House that approved the $170 billion farm bill a year before the old one even expires, and it's the Democrat-controlled Senate that is considering phasing out the obsolete farm subsidies and replacing them with programs designed to help farmers manage the risks they face. Unfortunately, the Agriculture Committee has approved a mirror of the House version, so it looks like good money will follow bad. All of Georgia's representatives, including our own Mac Collins, voted for the pay raise, except for Bob Barr. Cynthia McKinney didn't cast a vote, so if her opponent next year accuses her of voting for a pay raise, she'll be able to say she didn't. It's not a huge raise, and those few hundred thousand dollars certainly won't have any effect on the overall budget. Then again, a hundred thousand here or there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. But if they're willing to give themselves a raise now, I think our leaders are signaling that they are in a spending mood, which is another way of saying they're in a power-grabbing mood. Every time they jack up spending, they take over more of the economy. It makes me nervous, because it's coupled with a trend toward trampling civil liberties in the name of security. That's a one-two punch we can do without. Congress passed the airport security bill using the argument that the airline industry will suffer if people don't "feel" safe. On the contrary, the airline industry is suffering because people don't want to put up with the security hassles. So I suppose we'll have a never-ending cycle of more and more stringent security measures to try and create that feeling of safety, which will drive more and more people away from airports, creating the perceived need for more and more security measures ... A friend of mine says it's time to rebel. I don't agree. But it's certainly time to start making some noise and letting our leaders know we don't like the direction they've taken.
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