The Pork King

aka: Senator Robert ‘Sheets’ Byrd. Read the quote about 2/3 of the way down.

From: Jewish World Review Dec. 27, 2006 / 6 Teves, 5767

The bipartisan Katrina boondoggle

By Michelle Malkin

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Government sucks. It sucks billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain in the name of preventing disasters. It sucks billions more cleaning those disasters up when prevention fails. It sucks millions on top of the billions for investigations and recriminations. And then the cycle begins anew.

The Bush administration, like every administration since Jimmy Carter created the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 1979, has failed mightily to break the natural disaster-federal disaster cycle.

Next to the systemic breakdown on border security and immigration enforcement, the Hurricane Katrina boondoggle stands as the Republicans’ most disgraceful domestic failure. After years of hawking five-pound fiscal conservative blueprints for downsizing government bureaucracy and reforming federal spending, the GOP blew a monumental opportunity to show liberals how to end disaster socialism.

Federal investigators now estimate the total for Hurricane Katrina waste could exceed $2 billion next year. Some $1 billion in aid has already been squandered on everything from unused trailers to empty cruise ship cabins, junkets, and disaster aid debit cards that covered strip club and champagne expenses. Investigators reportedly will release the first of several audits examining more than $12 billion in Katrina contracts next month.

Adding to this already nauseating debacle: grandstanding Democrats. According to the Associated Press, when the Dems take over in January, "at least seven committees plan hearings or other oversight ? from housing to disaster loans ? on how the $88 billion approved for Katrina relief is being spent.

" Among those chairing oversight panels: Sen. Robert “They call me ‘The Pork King,’ they don’t know how much I enjoy it” Byrd, D-W.Va. When they hold their windy hearings and press conferences decrying wastefraudandabuse, they’ll bray about countless hurricane contractors with GOP ties. They’ll turn over the microphone to corporate shakedown hypocrites such as Jesse Jackson to moan about favoritism in government contracting. And they’ll assail the Republican culture of corruption while looking the other way at Katrina’s Democrat profiteers."