Compassion Means Using Your Own Money

Swiped from Investors Business Daily, via Newsbeat 1 and G. H. Reynlods:

Professional fretters, led by gloomy columnists such as David Broder, and political opportunists are casting long shadows over the spending, declaring that it is yet another disaster created by the Bush White House. They see the deficit hitting a half trillion dollars this year. And they, no surprise here, demonize the Bush tax cuts as part of the problem. They're not.

The problem is what it always is in Washington, no matter who holds Congress or who sits in the White House: Too much spending. There is a way out. For every buck Washington spends on Katrina relief, Congress has to cut a dollar from somewhere else in the budget. Every House member and every senator, as a show of support for the hurricane's victims, should publicly give up a pork project in their district or in their state.

This includes lawmakers from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, as well. Those states accept pork just as the other 47 do, and it's a certainty that taxpayers' dollars went to pet projects in those coastal states that could have blunted the effects of Katrina had they been used properly.