Protect Forests, Don't Give Them Away
Plan Would Cut Welfare, Ban New Logging Roads in Some National Forests
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One of the worst cases of corporate welfare in the USA is when the federal government builds roads for private logging companies to use -- inside federal parkland! Now the Clinton administration is suggesting a halt to some of the corporate welfare, and the welfare queens are screaming mad! Here are a few excerpts from Matt Kelley's recent report for the Associated Press, with supplementary indignation added by the Banneker Center for Economic Justice. |
House Democrats defended President Clinton's proposal to ban new roads on more than 40 million acres of national forest land, saying the roads would cost too much and pollute waterways.
Western GOP senators [the pawns of the corporate welfare queens] slammed the proposal at a hearing Tuesday. Democrats on the panel praised Clinton's plan, saying the Forest Service now gets only about 20 percent of the money it needs to maintain 380,000 miles of existing roads and has an $8 billion backlog of repairs. Adding new roads to that system would only worsen the financial crunch and hurt the environment, Democrats said.
"Every dollar spent on new roads takes a dollar away from maintaining existing ones," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. "It's like saying you're going to build a new room on the house while the roof's caving in."
Corporate welfare Republicans, however, complained that the proposal would help the presidential prospects of Vice President Al Gore.
"They (administration officials) want to prohibit any and all activity in our national forests," mistakenly said Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Arizona.
"This administration is driving the American people to serfdom," said a confused corporate welfare backer, Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho.
Why are Republicans so eager for corporate welfare? Why don't Democrats focus more on this issue? Tell your opinion to The Progress Report:
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