Why are you asking me, Mr. Republican National Committee Chairman?

Matthew Ygelsias points us to a particularly dopey passage in a recent speech by RNC chair Michael Steele:

Democrats in Congress want a one-trillion dollar spending bill. You’ve heard about the pork-barrel programs they want to fund… 45 million dollars for ATV trails and removal of fish passage barriers is one that caught my eye. Exactly what is a fish passage barrier and why does it cost 45 million dollars to stimulate the economy with it?

As Yglesias asks, if Steele didn't know what a fish passage barrier is, why didn't he look it up instead of asking all of us? (Of course, he did know what it is.)

The proper thing for Steele to do was to pose the question, pause to let it sink in, then answer it. Presumably, he could have said something like, "I'll tell you what a fish passage barrier is. It's something that interferes with the upstream movement of fish! Now, why on earth would we care if a species of fish can't reproduce? Don't we have enough fish as it is? Can't they pay for the removal of a fish passage barrier if it bothers them so much?"

Evidently, he thought it better to leave us in the dark. And I'm sure he didn't mean to falsely imply that it would cost $45 million to remove "a" fish passage barrier (as in just one of them).

Comments

[Chris VanHaight]

Obama has already responded to the critique that this is not a stimulus bill but a spending bill by basically saying that a stimulus bill is a spending bill: the government spends money on public works projects, resulting in the hiring of people to do the work, who then spend their paychecks supporting other businesses, etc. What really are the differences in skills between building a levee along a river and removing a fish barrier along a river? I bet not much. The whole idea is to spend a lot of money. Of course, one can critique the whole idea of a stimulus/spending bill as something that is not going to do much for the overall economy but that will balloon the national debt. However that is a philosophical argument and is just not as "sexy" as criticizing fish projects and other "wasteful" public spending.