Citizens Against Government Waste lays out the sausage in the God-awful $286 billion transportation bill, including the jaw-dropping $230 million bridge that will connect tiny Gravina Island (population: 50) to mainland Alaska.

The bill adds another $230 million for another Alaskan bridge. The second bridge will be named “Don Young’s Way,” after the Alaskan congressman who sponsored it, and who chairs the House Transportation Committee. The bill itself is named after Young’s wife.

Here’s more:

But Young, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, wasn’t willing to say this is the high point of his career in Congress.

It’s like hunting, he said.

“I don’t live and say, ‘This is the biggest head I’m going to get,’ ” he said Friday afternoon from his Capitol Hill office, the upper reaches of which is crowded, antler to furry jowl, with trophy mounts. “I’m always going to be looking for a bigger head.”

Only New York, California, and Illinois will get more money from the bill than Alaska.

And all because its one Congressman chairs the committee writing the checks — and because none of his Republican colleagues have the courage to call him on it.

What a smug, cynical bastard this guy is. And what an absolute low for the Republican party.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2005 at 12:06 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.