CONSERVATIVES CALL FOR BIGGER GOVERNMENT

The Silver Lining

Washington (WPI) - Responding to the dramatic need for aid to the suffering millions from hurricane Katrina members of the country's largest Conservative organizations have reversed years of rhetoric and are now calling for an histrionic increase in the Federal government.

Tom Delay, Senate Majority Leader, began the call from his home state of Louisiana. “This is a disaster of biblical proportions,” he told a crowd of construction company representative gathered to learn the bidding process for state contracts. “It will require an epic relief program to repair the damage.”

Quoting President Bush Delay told the excited crowd, “The President hears you! He knows your suffering! He has declared, and I quote, ‘It's going to cost whatever it costs!’”

Cheers and applause went up from the group. Delay was speaking from the porch of an antebellum mansion, part of a former cotton plantation, owned by the head of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture, Peter Lagree.

Estimates of the cost to repair the Gulf Coast damage run as high as 500 billion dollars. On Friday President Bush’s advisers warned that Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction costs will swell the national debt by $200 billion or beyond.

However, Bush ruled out raising any taxes to pay for even a little bit of Gulf Coast reconstruction. Describing a spending policy authored by the Heritage Foundation under the direction of Karl Rove, his Chief of Staff, Bush said the staggering cost of relief will have to be taken out of other government programs. "We're going to be wise about the money we spend."

Bush did not put a price tag on the costs or say what government programs will be cut.

Democrats have been skeptical of the President’s plan.

“This is no plan at all unless the goal is to exploit this disaster to finally and completely fulfill Grover Noquist’s sick dream of ‘drowning the federal government in a bathtub’” said Nancy Pelosi of California.

Pelosi was referring to the lobbyist and head of the conservative lobby group Americans for Tax Reform, a political partner of the Heritage Foundation among other extreme right-wing organizations. Norquist’s famous quip, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub!" Has become the motto of the Neoconservatives who are determined to convert the Federal government to a simple tax feeding machine for the super-rich.

The pledge of "no new taxes" that many Republican legislators have signed was his project.

Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said, “Hurricane Katrina is seen as a divine act of God confirming the righteousness of the Neocon philosophy.”

Speaking alongside Senator Pelosi on the steps of the Capitol he explained his shocking comment.

“First, by stubbornly stripping talent and resources out of FEMA a calamitous failure of government response resulted. This is proof, Conservatives argue, that government doesn’t work. Next, as all America demands funding to rebuild the Gulf Coast, the Neocons see an unparalleled opportunity to feast. They will feed billions of tax dollars to the owners of companies like Bechtold and Halliburton who are, after all, the real Neocons. The billions of dollars dolled out in corporate welfare will further impoverish federal agencies and programs resulting in drastic cuts in services. Finally, after gutting them, the Halliburton-Neocons will call for ‘privatization’ of agencies like FEMA, pointing to how poorly they performed.

Concluding, Liberman explained, "The goal is to create a new government structure designed to efficiently funnel money directly from tax-payers to shareholders with no sticky government oversight involved. Nice plan isn’t it?”

“Aww, pshaw!” Exclaimed Mr. Delay when informed of Senator Libermann’s comments. “Those Democrats always gotta find the dark cloud in the silver lining. This is a great day for America!”