THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

From the AP we get this collection of brilliant ideas to pay for Katrina. As expected, those who have profited mightily from the efforts and services of the US government under real American presidents will NOT be asked to sacrifice anything to the rebuilding during the reign of Our Dear Embattled Leader.

Raising taxes or not making permanent the president's tax cuts is not the answer now, said Pence, head of the Republican Study Group, the spearhead group for the GOP's most conservative members.

"We simply cannot break the bank of the federal budget," Pence told ABC's "This Week."
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The drug benefit program, set to begin Jan. 1, is expected to cost $40 billion a year. Last month President Bush signed a $286.4 billion highway bill that has been criticized for including about 6,000 projects added by lawmakers to benefit their districts and states.

Setting aside all of those additional highway projects and delaying the drug benefit by a year are expected to be among the proposals House Republicans are preparing for "Operation Offset" this week, Pence said.
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Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said tax increases will not be a part of the recovery plan he intends to offer this week. Although cuts in spending and delays in spending already approved will not be in his proposal, Vitter said he is open to considering such actions.

Rebuilding one of Americas biggest and most important ports cities will be very expensive. The thought that "robbing Peter to pay Paul" will be adequate is patently absurd and deceitful; and totally in keeping with the Bushoviks way of governance. Bill Clinton speaks about what we must also avoid when Karl starts handing out no-bid contracts to his kind of people.

Former President Clinton said that Democrats should oppose policies that result in the government borrowing more money from other countries to pay for the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rebuilding the Gulf Coast and providing tax cuts to the wealthiest.

He said Democrats should make those policies an issue in next year's congressional elections.

"We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year," Clinton said. "I don't think it makes any sense. I think it's wrong."

But we all know that substituting IOU's for assets to subsidize tax cuts for the wealthy is ODEL's great fiscal plan.