MORE FROM THE GOP, PARTY OF FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

I wonder which developers put how much money into Lott's and Cochran's campaigns, because I sure as heck don't believe they're doing this for "safety" reasons. If they were so concerned about "motorists and pedestrians killed on the rails" why didn't they do something before the line was repaired?

The project, which was added to a $106.5 billion emergency defense spending bill in the Senate, would relocate a Gulf Coast rail line inland, to higher ground. Never mind that the hurricane-battered line was just repaired at a cost of at least $250 million. Or that at $700 million, the project championed by Mississippi's two US senators is being called the largest "earmark" ever.
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Especially critical of the railway earmark is Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma, who is emerging as a fierce opponent of pork projects.

"Emergency supplemental bills are designed to help our nation confront emergencies. While the current location of this rail line may be displeasing to local economic developers and politicians, it is hardly a national emergency," he said in a statement on April 7. He wants Congress to end the practice of earmarks, which he calls "the gateway drug to overspending."

Tags: GOP, "railroad to nowhere", excessive spending