Word: budgetable
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...country toward default in order to declare an emergency situation so that he can remain president. For his part, Yushchenko has accused Tymoshenko of betraying national interests and agreeing "a secret Molotov-Ribbentrop protocol" with Moscow as part of attempts to secure a $5 billion loan to cover budget shortfalls. Russia's outspoken ambassador to Ukraine, former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, caused a diplomatic uproar in February when he said they were "at each other like dogs...
...congressmen to force recalcitrant bureaucracies to take on worthy projects. For example, most federal transportation aid goes directly to state agencies with monomaniacal attachments to building sprawl roads; maybe that's why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has an earmark for a bike path in the latest budget...
...Missouri and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Democrats like Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who never met an earmark he couldn't name after himself. But earmarks are not the only way they bring home the bacon. In fact, the earmarks in the current budget bill amount to only $7.7 billion, less than 2% of the overall spending. But they will get 98% of the attention. This happens every time Congress passes a spending bill; the media focus on earmarks, which often sound funny and vaguely scandalous, while ignoring the rest of the substance...
...That's a shame, because this is an interesting budget. It was originally drafted last year, but congressional Democrats didn't want to send it to President Bush, so it will only fund the government from April through September. Still, it's a real window into their priorities: a 21% increase for worthy low-income nutrition programs, a 13% hike for the already bloated Agriculture Department, a long-overdue 10% boost for Amtrak, cuts for Bush-era abstinence and foreign aid programs, zero for a Bush-era reading program plagued by cronyism and mismanagement. The budget is also notable...
...That's a real problem. Obama recently released his 2010 budget outline, which addresses those larger issues. He also pledged a new framework for additional earmark reforms for 2010. But it's lame for Obama's aides to dismiss the 2009 budget as leftover business from the Bush era. He's the President. He wasn't elected to ignore the leftover business from the Bush era. He ought to be taking heat for punting - not only on the earmarks, but on the other $402 billion worth of government spending. But his critics, from McCain on the Senate floor to Maureen...