Gail Collins, in a New York Times column on President Bush's pathetic response to the financial meltdown, reports on a bumbling speech to Wall Street leaders yesterday, just as the Fed's extraordinary bailout of Bear Stearns was announced (emphasis mine):
“One thing is certain that Congress will do is waste some of your money,” he said. “So I’ve challenged members of Congress to cut the number of cost of earmarks in half.”
Besides being incoherent, this is a perfect sign of an utterly phony speech. Earmarks are one of those easy-to-attack Congressional weaknesses, and in a perfect world, they would not exist. But they cost approximately two cents in the grand budgetary scheme of things. Saying you’re going to fix the economy or balance the budget by cutting out earmarks is like saying you’re going to end global warming by banning bathroom nightlights.
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