Sen. Kennedy, does this bridge look familiar?
Opponents of the Healthcare bill currently winding its way through Congress are crying foul over provisions that allot money for things such things as playgrounds, streetlights, and farmers’ markets. Predictably, Democrats have said these particular provisions are not wasteful, but instead promote a healthy lifestyle.
Senator Ted Kennedy’s D-MA spokesman Anthony Coley said, “These are not public works grants; they are community transformation grants,” and “If improving the lighting in a playground or clearing a walking path or a bike path or restoring a park are determined as needed by a community to create more opportunities for physical activity, we should not prohibit this from happening.”
Did you catch the bait and switch in that quote? “We should not prohibit this from happening.” But the issue has never been about the federal government prohibiting communities from building playgrounds or selling food, it is that the federal government shouldn’t be paying for it, and especially not as wasteful additions, with only tenuous connections, to the bill they’ve been slipped into.
Using the spokesman’s logic, if anything the government doesn’t fund means it’s prohibiting it, then the federal government is preventing you from buying clothing, eating, finding housing, having a job, owning a car, owning a phone, having a gym membership, etc. I’m sure Democrats are merely biding their time before these things become government funded mandates as well, but perhaps they should prioritize. If it’s a healthcare bill they want, focus on the problems with the current system. I doubt “not having enough playgrounds” is a problem that needs immediate redress. And if they absolutely insist on throwing earmarks for infrastructure like streetlights in a healthcare bill, perhaps Senator Kennedy should sponsor some earmarks for stronger guardrails on Massachusetts’ bridges. At least that would have actually saved a life.
Be sure to check out the Pork Barrel Corruption Blog for more.
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