In Brief: The "Insanity" of the GOP Reaction to Energy Independence Projects:
Yesterday, Joltin' Joe Biden announced that the Obama administration, of which he is part, wants to spend $53 billion on a high-speed rail system for the United States o' America, the country of which he is Vice President. That's $53 billion over six years, which, according to the Rude Pundit's awesome mathematical abilities, works out to be roughly John Boehner's monthly Kleenex budget.

Of course, immediately, Republicans walked over to the idea and took a piss on it. It's "insanity," opined Pennsylvania Congressman Bill Shuster, who chairs the Railroad Subcommittee in the House. Yes, yes, how dare we spend money on necessary things when there are taxes that need to be cut and fetuses that need to be saved (except by government-related health care). Yes, yes, how dare a nation that needs to be smaller and smaller dare to think in even minor terms of how big things might be done. Insanity, indeed.

Of course, when President Bush was in office and Republicans ran the House until 2006, Representative Shuster couldn't get enough of spending. If tax dollars were cocaine, Bill Shuster would have a very bloody nose. 'Cause, see, Shuster also voted for, among other bloated Bush-era budget busters, the 2006 Emergency Supplemental Act, which included nearly $67 billion for a single year of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Essentially, this country's like the kids of crack addicts: they don't have money for food 'cause Mom and Dad blew it all gettin' high.

The Rude Pundit imagines that, in the short and long runs, the "insane" investment is not the one that reduces our dependency on foreign oil. But, you know, that would be logic and logic is, in and of itself these days, insane.