What Honeybee Insurance???
Kevin Drum noticed that Neil Cavuto has been carrying on for the past week about an item in the stimulus package. Cavuto calls it honeybee insurance:
Mitch McConnell and David Vitter have joined in on the Senate floor to mock this disgraceful waste of taxpayer money. It’s shocking! Now, you will be unsurprised to learn that the program in question isn’t honeybee insurance at all, it’s disaster insurance for all livestock producers. But that’s not the best part.
The provision simply continues a program enacted by Congress last year, overriding a veto by President Bush. In other words, the Senate voted on it twice in 2008 — once to enact and once to override. Connoisseurs of political comedy will see the punch line coming: McConnell and Vitter voted yea both times.
3 Responses to “What Honeybee Insurance???”
Republican hypocrisy. What a surprise.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Republicans have argued in bad faith the whole time. The only reason they oppose this stimulus bill is that a Democratic President might benefit. It's that simple. There is no principle at work. Just partisanship.
exactly, elrod, and it is very likely to backfire. Keep it up idiot Republicans. Much will pass anyway, especially as it gets closer to the time obstructionists must face reelection. Then, with the country on board with Obama and the GOP seen as the roadblock party, good bye for good.
There are a lot of good non-partisan reasons to oppose the “stimulus” bill.
#1 – much of the spending has nothing to do with stimulus, but rather with the partisan agenda of the democratic party
#2 – how do you spend money you dont have? You borrow it from the chinese and pay interest on it until it is repaid – which could be decades
#3 – the money supply is limited and if the government continues to borrow and spend, then it will be more difficult to lend money to consumers – which is anti-stimulus
#4 – the goal was to stimulte the ECONOMY not the government and it could be argued that this bill does more of the latter than the former
#5 – take a moment to research how much money the US Treasury has historically printed, vs. what they are printing now to cover the TARP spending + anticipating this stimulus package. Printing money does not create wealth, but it can create hyper-inflation on the order of that seen by south american banana republics of decades past.
We could spend half as much money and spend in only on infrastructure and housing stimulus and get more result than the bill in it''s current form. If democrats are serious about stimulus vs. political payback and agenda – then they should clean up this bill so that is beneficial to all americans, not just unionist, ACORN, environmentalist etc.