imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Thursday, June 01, 2006
DC, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM
There is a big disconnect between Washington DC -- both parties -- and the rest of the country. I am not the first to notice this ...
8 AJ Strata on The Imperial Congress: Tom thinks most in Congress are hard working good people. Well good people would be outraged by all this smearing of their reputations.
8 Mac Ranger says Say Goodnight Hastert: In playing the Prima-Dona, Rep. Hastert has commited political suicide. In fact he ought to quit now.
Nor will I be the last.
8 In fact Peggy Noonan thinks America may be ready for a new political party: There is an increasing and profound distance between the rulers of both parties and the people--between the elites and the grunts, between those in power and those who put them there. … Right now the Republicans and Democrats in Washington seem, from the outside, to be an elite colluding against the voter.
Maybe it's the weather that's affecting me. The last week of May was a swelter pit here with temps in the mid-90s, pushing 100* one day, coupled with tropical humidity levels. Yesterday threatened severe storms and today it's raining. Ever since our roof leaked recently into our living room and our dining room -- the water ran right down through the chandelier -- I begin to panic whenever it rains. We need a new roof badly, and we were thinking of one until we received a notice from the bank last week that our "fixed rate" mortgage has been increased by 22% mostly due to the increase in taxes. Goodbye new roof. Not to mention that yesterday I received notice that I've overdrawn my checking account -- when and how, I dunno -- which means I'm already starting out this month "behind." So y'might say I wasn't in the most charitable of moods when I read that NYC is outraged that the Federal Dept. of Homeland Security has cut their portion of the pie by 40%.
8 THE FEDS' FOUL: How many national monuments - or, as the feds put it, "icons" - are to be found in New York City?
Well, either one or two fewer than existed on Sept. 10, 2001 - depending on how you count the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
This is important, insofar as the Department of Homeland Security has decreed New York City deficient in national "icons," and thus subject to a breathtaking 40 percent cut in federal anti-terrorism aid.
…
Rep. Peter King (R-Nassau), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has vowed to make the feds "very sorry they made this decision."
We believe him.
And we expect that New York's entire congressional delegation - and its extraordinarily powerful business community - won't sit still for this outrageous pork-barreling.
8 D.C.'S STUPID SCROOGES SLASH NYC TERROR AID AND SPLURGE ON THE STICKS: The Homeland Security Department announced it was hacking funds distributed to the city by 40 percent compared with last year, while pouring hundreds of millions into unlikely terror targets like Kentucky and Wyoming.
The shocking stinginess from Washington comes just one week after a Pakistani national was convicted of a plot to blow up the Herald Square subway station.
New York City will get its vital anti-terror funding chain-sawed from $208 million this year to $124 million next year - even though security experts agree it is vastly more threatened than any other city in the country.
8 KNIFING NYC: The DHS tries to justify the cut by saying there were funding reductions across the board. True, the overall budget was lowered by 20 percent. But why cut New York City's funding by twice that level? And why give big hikes to cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, while drastically funding for the two major cities previously hit by terror attacks - New York and Washington, D.C.?
"FOUL." "SCROOGES." "SLASH." "KNIFING." Call me a cold heartless f'n b, but before I do an OMG! kneejerk reaction, I'd like to know just how the money is being spent. After all, that money did NOT come from DC or altruistic elected officials (they pork-barrel for us, y'know;). That money came from all of us taxpayers. So while I sit here amidst the leaks in my taxed-to-death humble 6 rooms and bath, I want to know why NYC will not be safe without that extra $84 million.
It's very possible that they do need it, but it's also possible that the shortfall can be found elsewhere, too, either at the federal level or local or both. I honestly don't know.
What I do know is that both parties never say, "We can economize. We can do with less." Instead, they treat us like ATMs (Automatic Tax Machines), then waltz into town with our money in their pockets -- the return on our dollar is pathetic -- expecting us to be grateful. That's offensive.
*