More Money?

What a surprise. The federal government needs more money.

Much like the adolescent who aspires to buy a car, spends his allowance on movies with his friends, and later runs back to his parents saying he just doesn't have enough money. A parent should be wise enough to say, "If you want to buy a car, you'll just have to cut back on other expenditures. Maybe movies with your friends aren't worth the cost to you right now."

A taxpayer should be wise enough to say, "If you can't manage what I've already given you, why do you deserve more?" As I pointed out in an earlier post, FEMA had enough money to put at least 700 firefighters through an eight-hour course on sexual harassment and discrimination upon the firefighters' arrival in New Orleans. If it didn't use those resources wisely, how does unfettered access to your wallet give them a greater incentive to do so?

When the initial request was for 10.5 billion, I knew it wouldn't last long, especially considering that as of September 3rd, "FEMA ha[d] been spending $500 million a day on disaster relief," and today "emergency expenditures soar -- with new commitments as high as $2 billion a day." Had we continued with the $500 million per day, we would have finished spending that in 25 days.

Putting the expenditures in perspective, "Since Katrina struck, Congress has already spent $62.3 billion, dwarfing the inflation-adjusted $17.8 billion that Congress spent on hurricanes Andrew, Iniki and Omar, which struck in 1992, and the $15.2 billion emergency appropriation for the Northridge, Calif., earthquake of 1994. The entire Persian Gulf War of 1991 cost less than $83 billion in today's dollars."

Just keep giving them more and they will keep demanding more.