Congress fell off the cliff, UNnecessarily, but as many had predicted, until 2 old pros, Biden and McConnell crafted an omnibus solution to some of the problems and got it thru the Senate. The House balked for a while until Democratic votes saved the compromise and Speaker Boehner's bacon.
As usual there were some good things in that plan and some bad. But as CBS News first pointed out (and only lately have the Kentucky print media used the story!) that bill contained $74Billion--that's Billions--in pork projects and earmarks..totally UNrelated to fiscal cliff topics. One source estimated the bill saved perhaps $85Billion, which the earmarks largely took away.
It was a bad ending to the fiscal cliff saga..and, since the bill originated in the Senate, McConnell had to have known about the earmarks (which both parties and both chambers have pledged to either cut drastically or eliminate). He needs to be mercilessly questioned about these by all the media and especially by his Kentucky constituents..
Slow forward a few days to the new Congress, which then voted on $9B in emergency aid to Sandy's victims in NJ, NY, and CT. Our new 6th district Congressman, Andy Barr, in his first major vote, voted against this aid! Makes you wonder if he had gotten 650 more votes two years ago and taken office then, would he have voted against emergency aid for the tornado victims of Kentucky?
This is neither "compassionate conservatism" (remember that phrase of not too long ago?) or even intelligent conservatism..and it is a bad start to his term as our representative.
I'm just sayin'...
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