Finally, Some Waves!

I'm intellectually honest enough to report corrections to my own assertions.  For example, last week I had blasted the whole of Congress for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new private jets for themselves after demonizing private companies and individuals who owned them.  After several days of watching the news, I had not seen one peep of disapproval from anyone in Congress, so I posted about it.  Now, however, it looks like some people are finally making some waves about it:

Bipartisan opposition is emerging in the Senate to a plan by House lawmakers to spend $550 million for additional passenger jets for senior government officials.

The resistance to buying eight Gulfstream and Boeing planes comes as members of both chambers of Congress embark on the busiest month of the year for official overseas travel. The plan to upgrade the fleet of government jets, which was included in a broader defense-funding bill, has also sparked criticism from the Pentagon, which has said it doesn't need half of the new jets.

"The whole thing kind of makes me sick to my stomach," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) in an interview Sunday. "It is evidence that some of the cynicism about Washington is well placed -- that people get out of touch and they spend money like it's Monopoly money."

Several other senators said they share the concerns and will work to oppose the funding for the jets when the legislation is taken up by the Senate in September, including Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.,) Jack Reed (D., R.I.), Richard Burr (R., N.C.), Christopher Bond (R., Mo.) and John Thune (R., S.D.).

The funding for new planes is "a classic example of Congress being out of touch with the realities of deficit spending," said Mr. Thune.

Kudos to McCaskill for actually standing up against this wasteful spending.  As a former auditor, that was one of her big selling points in the election that got her into the Senate, and it's good to see her sticking to her guns on this.  For all her other gratuitous faults, I'm glad to see her out front on this one.

Still, why did it take several weeks and multiple reports in multiple news outlets to get any opposition going to this?  And where are the Republicans who are supposed to stand against this kind of excess?  It's pathetic, really, and a big part of the reason the GOP is currently a minority party.

And, if you really want to boil it down, the biggest problem in my mind is not that the government is buying new jets...as I said before, that's a great industry that employs a lot of people.  No, the real problem is what's happened in the past, with the political condemnation of private jets due to ridiculous global warming concerns, and especially last fall, when Congress berated and belittled anyone and everyone who used a private jet as being somehow eeeeevil.

I think we should throw both the pot and the kettle into the fire on this one.

There's my two cents.