Articles by Veronique de Rugy
The 'Emergency' Loophole
Politicians are crying crocodile tears about deficit spending but their actions demonstrate that they remain addicted to big government. The latest example is a $106.5 billion Senate supplemental spending package. The stated purpose of this latest round of suppleme
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Bipartisan Hysteria Is Not Security
The bipartisan hysteria over the pending $6.8 billion deal allowing the company Dubai Ports World to oversee operations at key U.S. ports demonstrates how misguided Congress is in matters of homeland security. The fear over this deal is that Arab...
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The Spend of Our Union Is Strong
According to President George W. Bush, "the State of our Union is strong and together we will make it stronger." To that end, the President appeared committed to making his tax cuts permanent and to make America more competitive. He...
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The Scarcity of Security
The insurance industry estimates that the U.S. cities facing the highest risk of terrorist attack are New York, Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco. Other cities at a high risk of attack are Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, Seattle, and Boston. All...
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Securing the Porkland
For three consecutive years now, the surge in spending to strengthen "homeland security" has provided ample opportunities for Republican and Democrat lawmakers to indulge in common passions: bragging about protecting the country from terrorists and directing feder
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Pork Gumbo
Louisiana lawmakers have come up with a request for $250 billion in federal reconstruction funds for Louisiana alone. That's more than $50,000 per person in the state. This money would come on top of the $62.3 billion that Congress has...
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Cataloguing the Federal and State Response to Katrina
Many columns have been written on this site in the last few weeks about what the federal government should do in response to Katrina (see here and here for example). Unfortunately, given the nature of political responses to disaster, many...
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Hurricane Relief Spending: How Will We Pay For it?
President Bush just signed a bill authorizing an additional $51.8 billion to be spent in hurricane relief. This raises Katrina's cost to federal taxpayers to $62.3 billion so far. "The responsibility of caring for hundreds of thousands of citizens...
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Fools Rush In
While the tragic events are still unfolding in New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast, it is business as usual in Washington DC. Critics of President Bush are blaming him for requesting less money for programs to guard...
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No Pork Left Behind
Congress is frequently like a self-centered toddler who couldn't care less about the welfare of others. The transportation bill is the best example of that. The bill is two years overdue, billions of dollars higher than the President wanted and...
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