Ryan Converts to Fiscal Conservatism!

As first reported by Keith Schmitz over at folkbum’s rambles and rants, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan has started giving out his Budget Boondoggle Award to “highlight the most egregious, wasteful, and unnecessary spending American taxpayers were forced to fund.” What’s really interesting to note about the first set of Budget Boondoggle Awards to just two budget items totaling 59 million dollars:

• 20 million dollars budgeted to pay for a commercial ferry in Alaska nicknamed “The Ferry to Nowhere,” connecting Anchorage with Port MacKenzie, which Ryan said would serve 40 people.
• 39 million dollars budgeted for the National Drug Intelligence Center, which duplicates other federal drug enforcement efforts, and which President Bush has repeatedly proposed closing.

What I can’t figure out is how Congressman Ryan could only come up with a paltry 59 million dollars worth of “egregious, wasteful, and unnecessary spending” while our government continues to throw piles of money – roughly 275 million dollars per day, to be exact – into the war in Iraq. What’s really ironic here is that Paul Ryan wants to paint himself as a fiscal conservative, when in reality he’s nothing of the sort. Time and time again he’s voted to spend billions upon billions of tax dollars in Iraq, and time and time again he’s voted in favor of legislation that contains billions of dollars in earmarks, so he’s in no position to hand out awards highlighting wasteful spending.

Perhaps when Congressman Ryan’s ready to stop voting in lockstep with the Republican Party when it comes to writing blank checks for the war in Iraq, I’ll start taking his newfound sense of fiscal responsibility seriously.