| It’s a safe bet that if you weren't getting a $300 check in the mail you’d be more upset about George Bush spending $430,000 of your money on his swimming pool. Okay, technically it’s your swimming pool, it being in the White House, but the odds are monstrously high against you or I ever having a “Marco Polo” funfest with Dubya in the Presidential pool. I’ve never seen the White House pool, but it must be in a South Central L.A. state of disrepair if it requires half a million bucks to fix. I’ve done some fact checking (Congress is out this month - the only time I’ve taken my thumb out of my ass in two weeks is to write this column) and a brand new, top-of-the-line swimming pool from a reputable Maryland company will run you about $90,000. Naturally the White House isn’t talking, but I find it hard to believe you can spend $340,000 on foam noodles and bronze swans that look like they're spitting. If the current Treasury/Postal appropriations bill is cleared by Congress, your tax dollars will foot the bill for $11.5 million dollars of repair to the White House, the most in U.S. history, and $819,000 more than last year. By way of comparison, Congress will spend $20 million on family housing for the entire United States Navy AND Marine Corps. Lest you begin to get upset with Congress for throwing your money around, remember that this total is $219,000 less than what Bush had sought for his temporary home. For a guy whose summer home in Crawford, Texas looks like it was rented from Leatherface, the guy has expensive taste. Congress also turned down Bush’s request for $5,000 for “historic furnishing,” noting that $10,000 was given last year for this cause, and only $114 of it was used. Sort of makes you wonder what Clinton was trying to take with him that raised such a commotion - apparently he can make $114 go a lot further on Ebay than I can. Speaking of Bubba’s tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania, the bill also calls for $75,000 to be appropriated for a new kitchen floor that won’t leak grease into an office below. We know Clinton’s propensity for junk food, so it’s logical and understandable to blame him for not cleaning up the lard after frying up his scrapple and sausage. However, since our current President is probably the only one in history that could start a grease fire making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it’s best for all concerned that we solve this problem. But 75 grand? Did someone not notice hundreds of gallons of grease dripping into massive holes in the floor? Was Bubba storing it for a rainy day? And how big is this kitchen? High quality granite will run you $25 per square foot - that would make the kitchen 3000 square feet, or about three times the size of my apartment. If I turn around quickly in my kitchen I bang my elbow on the washing machine. As important as White House repair is, the government will spend money on other projects this year as well. In case you hadn't heard what effective lobbyists have procured this year, here's a sampling: -- $100,000 for “Public Service Recognition Week.” Maybe if they spent less on recognition and more on the employees, more people would want to go into public service. I went to this year’s festivities and walked away with a Department of Justice pencil and about four dozen stickers that have the foot and mouth disease-sniffing beagles on them. -- $3,196,000 for allowances and travel expenses of former Presidents. One piece of fine print says they’re cutting Reagan’s payments by $180,000. This Congress has no problem naming every friggin’ hunk of rock in the country after him, but they don’t want to support his Alzheimer’s-riddled ass. -- While no specific dollar amount was appropriated, the House Treasury/Postal Appropriations Subcommittee “is concerned about the postal needs of Curry, Alabama…the Committee recommends the US Postal Service evaluate the need for a post office in Curry.” Um, how are the good folks in Curry getting their mail now? Pony express? -- $2,993,000 for “Outreach for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers.” My guess is that we’re going to get prostitutes for all the guys in northern Iowa who are too yellow to ask Mary Jane to the sockhop down at the dancehall. -- Perhaps the reason Mary Jane won’t go a’courtin’ with the boys from Iowa is because they smell like pig farts. That will hopefully change thanks to the $500,000 “to reduce odor excretion in swine while increasing efficient digestion of dietary nutrients.” I’m sure my wife is sending off a carefully worded letter right now to see if I fall under this provision’s jurisdiction. -- The Appropriations committee “recommends $49,357,000 for minerals and geology management.” Good to know that we’re spending more than twice as much on rocks as we are on housing for two major bodies of the armed forces. How hard is it to manage minerals? It’s not like they’re going to get up and walk away, and I daresay we don’t need to reduce their odor excretion. -- You’re paying for a wonderful thing called the Weapons Activities program. According to the House’s Energy and Water Appropriations bill, the goal of the program is to “maintain confidence in the safety, security, reliability and performance of the Nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.” They want to maintain that confidence to the tune of $5 billion. That’s a hell of a lot of money to make people feel good about nuclear weapons. Seems to me all that one of Bush’s more confident spin-doctors would have to do is make the average person believe that massive stockpiles would result in an even bigger refund check next year. We’re also spending $10 million to “reduce the threats posed by operations of unsafe and aging Soviet-designed nuclear power plants in Russia and the Newly Independent States.” If things that are made in America are supposed to be of such high quality, why are we spending $5 billion to fix our own stuff and only $10 million on crappy (and supposedly more dangerous) commie-made stuff? Although when you think about it, $5 billion sounds like a lot of money, but it would only repair 66,666 kitchen floors. -- We here in DC have the added bonus of being the city in which the people who make budget repairs spend most of their time. As such, the $401,192,000 they spent on the Smithsonian Institution shouldn’t be surprising. I grant you that the museums aren’t looking so good and could probably use some updating (is there anyone left in the country who hasn’t seen Archie Bunker’s chair), but 400 million dollars? For that I’d better see live pterodactyls and the complete works of Leonardo, Donatello and the rest of the Ninja Turtles. We’re also scoring $64 million for the National Gallery of Art and $7 million for “National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs.” So you might as well come to DC, you’ve already paid for it. |
| YOU SURE YOU CAN AFFORD TO SEND ME $600 MR. PRESIDENT? DON'T NEED ANOTHER GOLD PLATED LADDER FOR THAT POOL? |
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| Sincere apologies for lack of a column last week. This is most certainly an imperfect science. |