Christian Science Monitor
by Matt Towery

09/27/05

A day of reckoning is coming for Republicans and conservatives, and it is approaching rapidly. Because of a series of natural disasters, unspeakable acts of terrorism, and the responses to them, this country is headed beyond a mere budget crisis. We're drifting toward a five-alarm financial fiasco. And like Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned, attention is focused on issues like the Senate's handwringing about the Supreme Court seats to be filled. Meanwhile, huge sums of money are necessarily committed to restoring what's left of the Gulf states after hurricane Katrina. ... This spotlights the painful budgetary collision between spending that's unavoidable and spending that's discretionary. The problem is that no 'discretion' is being exercised...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0927/p09s02-coop.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp