Rescissions and Politics

Senator Richard Burr (R, NC), recall, voted against a rescission of $15 billion  in unspent money because he wanted to preserve $15 million in unspent money in the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The good Senator, objecting to The Wall Street Journal having called him out, wrote a Letter to the Editor, explaining himself.  The center of his argument is this:

The LWCF isn’t, as you suggest, a “slush fund” or a “land grab.” Nor is it a piggy bank Washington should raid at its convenience. Instead, it is a rare example of an effective government program that costs taxpayers nothing and benefits them entirely.

So, the Senator voted to tank a multi-billion dollar reclama of unspent money over a bit of trivium with a value of a bare one-tenth of one per cent of the total being reclama-ed.  Never mind that if the LWCF were all that useful, it would have been spending that pocket change, and that if it were that valuable, it could be restored in the next budget.

In any event, the money, not having been used by the LWCF and having been reclama-ed, would have been lost to the LWCF not at all.

Brilliant.

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