1. mikethemadbiologist
  2. This Is "Wasteful Spending"?

This Is "Wasteful Spending"?

By mikethemadbiologist on January 29, 2009.

Congress, under pressure from Republicans*, cuts $200 million to refurbish the National Mall:

On Tuesday evening the House Rules Committee stripped two provisions from the stimulus package: the family planning money that President Obama personally lobbied Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to remove yesterday, and the $200 million to refurbish the National Mall.

The move was made amidst a torrent of GOP criticism about wasteful or non-stimulative spending in the bill, including those two projects, as the president attemps to woo House GOPers.

The Rules Committee provisions -- "4) strikes funding for the National Mall Revitalization Fund; and (5) strikes section 5004 regarding family planning" -- are self-executing, meaning they become part of the stimulus bill when the House approves the rule tomorrow morning, as expected.

Earlier today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs defended the inclusion of the $200 million National Mall Revitalization Fund in the bill, saying, "when we met on the first day of our presidency, we were on the Mall. Right? 1.8 million people stood on the Mall, which happens to be the most visited national park that we have. Right? I think that you can make a very credible case and the economic team has, that reconditioning the National Mall will create jobs. Probably through spending in small businesses."

I travel to DC a lot, and I usually spend some time down at the Mall. It definitely needs 'revitalizing.' I don't see how this isn't 'stimulatory': the money will be spent, and spent quickly.

Republicans fuck up everything.

*Why are we listening to these idiots anyway? Are they really going to hold up this bill over $200 million to fix and improve the mall? This is nothing more than 'pimp-smack politics'--the Republicans are pushing to see what they can get away with.

Tags
Conservatives
Democrats
Funding

More like this

Will Personal Conflict and the Industry/Labor Alliance Derail the Democrats' Climate Change Ambitions?
At the Washington Post today , Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald report on the diverging priorities of House speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic chairmen John Dingell and Henry Waxman, conflicts that might stall or even derail meaningful legislation on climate change. Last week, in a new…
Stimulus Spending and NSF Funding
Both the economic stimulus plan passed by the House and the plan passed by the Senate have quite a bit of funding for scientific research. As most of you know, scientific research is near and dear to my heart, and I'm generally in favor of spending lots of money trying to learn new things. For…
House Wonât Fund Executive Power Grab
By Liz Borkowski Finally, hereâs some good news in the power struggle between the Bush administration and Congress: The House has voted to prohibit the White Houseâs Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) from spending any money on an executive order that gives political appointees…
The political aftermath of the debt ceiling
I didn't blog about the debt ceiling becauseâ¦Â ugh. The idea that the Republican party would hold the country, and indeed the world economy, hostage is unimaginably awful. The idea that, in the midst of a recession barely worse than the Great Depression, we're talking about cutting government…

They didn't vote for it anyway. Some R senators will vote for it and a few Rs in the House will vote for the final mark-up. They just had to get their whining principled opposition out of the way.

By natural cynic (not verified) on 29 Jan 2009 #permalink

The Republican picking on the National Mall refurbishing is a smear. They're hoping the public will focus on 'mall', as most malls are, and not on the National Mall, which is something of a different beast. Malls are seen as frivolous and unnecessary. The Republicans know people are prone to focus on the few individual items which receive the most public discussion, and judge the whole of the bill based on those few items. (That being said, I do think malls in general are frivolous, and worse, they encourage the dangerous myth that an economy based soley on consumption is a good thing. However - the National Mall consists primarily of historical monuments, not stupid shops.)