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.

I’ve often argued against government spending on matters unrelated to the Constitutionally mandated payment of government debt, providing for the national defense, and seeing to the general Welfare (as defined by the clauses of Article I, Section 8).  I’ve also argued for privatizing the major social welfare programs of Social Security and Medicare.

Now Oklahoma illustrates the failure to limit the one and do the other at the State level, with Medicaid standing in for Medicare.

Much has been made about the deteriorating state of our nation’s infrastructure, from past todos that worked out to be just political chit-chat with nothing done to today’s efforts and commentary.

The commentary, as far as it goes, isn’t far wrong: our infrastructure, our roads, bridges, railroads, airports, even our communications infrastructure are in terrible shape.  But the commentary continues to be largely chit-chat, and the NLMSM isn’t helping.

Take this opening from a piece on President Donald Trump’s latest budget proposal from Fox News, for instance.

Last week, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed, a budget covering the next two years that has significantly larger spending caps than the last several budgets have had, including in particular a large increase in domestic spending.  Of course, that means spending must rise, right?  Every dollar budgeted must be spent; the budget is a spending floor, not a cap?

Not at all, as the budget proposal Trump has sent over to Congress for FY2019 demonstrates.

The Trump budget is proposing to reduce nondefense discretionary spending caps by 41% over the coming decade.