I'm listening to the News Hour with Jim Lehrer on NPR. Mr. Lehrer had a clip on Bush's veto of the $150.7 billion Labor/HHS appropriations bill. As an example of what he determined to be "wasteful spending" in the bill, Mr. Bush cited an earmark for a Portuguese as a second language program.
Now, I don't know the specifics of the cited program, but to me spending money encouraging Americans to learn Portuguese isn't wasteful. Depending on how you measure the number of first-language speakers, Portuguese is the sixth most spoken language in the world - more than Russian, Japanese, German, or French. But I bet Mr. Bush didn't know that.
The veto came on the same day that Mr. Bush signed a $459 billion bill for non-war spending for the Pentagon, and it came on the same day that the Congressional Democrats released a report estimating the hidden costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at $1.6 trillion. The Labor/HHS bill no doubt included spending on programs addressing long-term health care for veterans.
Democrats may be tax and spend liberals, but that is better than spend and spend Republicans. This president has ZERO credibility on the issue of fiscal restraint.
-------------------
In other political news, I got a robo-call phone survey this evening from my representative, Congressman Jeb Hensarling. The survey asked a series of leading questions, such as whether I thought illegal immigration was one of the most pressing issues facing our country today, whether I would support a bill granting amnesty, and whether I would support Jeb Hensarling in his efforts to protect my Second Amendment rights. As an indicator of the composition of his base, the last two questions somewhat bizarrely asked if I was male and over 35. My answers were: no, yes, no, yes, no. Perhaps my answers put me on his do not call list.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
If President Bush were as dedicated to education as he claims, one would think he'd want to promote (rather than mock) the teaching of foreign languages, especially in a world where international trade is becoming increasingly common. I believe the center in question is in Rhode Island, home to one of the US's most significant concentrations of both Portuguese and Brazilian immigrants, so such a program strikes me as necessary and useful in training locals to communicate with these immigrants in order to help them transition into American life.
You're right that Portuguese is the third-most spoken European language in the world, after only English and Spanish, but ahead of Russian, French, German and Italian, which are much more commonly taught in the US. Among nations where Portugese is spoken are (by far) Brazil, as well as Angola, Mozambique and a number of other smaller former Portuguese colonies throughout the world, as well as Portugal (obviously). So I don't find Portuguese a frivolous choice for a language center -- I doubt its purpose is just to prepare American tourists for their summer vacations in the Azores (no that there's anything wrong with that!).
Do you think it's just that Bush finds something inherently amusing (or offensive) about Portuguese? Or maybe he thinks Brazilians speak Spanish? Or "Brazilian"? LOL!
Post a Comment