Concern Over Cost of Recovery Troubles GOP

Looks like some Republicans are beginning to balk at the willingness of the Bush administration to throw money at post-Katrina recovery:

"On Thursday, even before President Bush promised that 'federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone,' fiscal conservatives from the House and Senate joined budget watchdog groups in demanding that the administration be judicious in asking for taxpayer dollars."

There are indications that the relief effort will end up costing $200 billion, or more thus far then we've paid for the war in Iraq. Between the war, deficits, hurricane recovery and tax cuts, something's gotta give. Some of the less generous members of the GOP would rather start with hurricane recovery:

"One fiscal conservative, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, said Thursday, 'I don't believe that everything that should happen in Louisiana should be paid for by the rest of the country. I believe there are certain responsibilities that are due the people of Louisiana.'"

He means by the state of Louisiana of course. And this from Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina:

"We know we need to help, but throwing more and more money without accountability at this is not going to solve the problem," Mr. DeMint said.

By accountability, he does not mean accountability for the failure of FEMA and the federal government in general...of course.

One Republican even sees it as an unprecedented opportunity to cut even more programs from the federal budget:

"'There has never been a time where there is more total spending and more wasteful spending in Washington than we have today,' said Pat Toomey, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and the head of the conservative Club for Growth. 'There is ample opportunity to find the offsets we need so that this does not have to be a fiscal disaster as well as a natural disaster.'"

$200 billion in "offsets"?

To be fair, not all Republican hearts are a-flutter at the thought of dropping $200 billion on the devestated Gulf Coast. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert says "We have to get this job done", and Tom DeLay indicated there might be no more fat to be cut from the budget, indicating that perhaps Katrina relief will not be used as an excuse to drop even more money from social programs.

$200 billion is a staggering amount of money, even for a fedral government used to throwing around weightier sums(see Medicare reform.) And yes, we're going to have to find a way to pay for it. What I sense here is some desperate Republicans hoping against hope that Katrian won't destroy not only New Orleans, but their plans for still further tax cuts. To that I say...good luck fellas. The play-time of ignoring deficits and responsibility to send more money back home to their wealthty peers, is over.