This is the RW site Keith mentioned tonight an FYI

[bluedawg12]

http://www.heritage.org/Research/GovernmentReform/sr05.cfm

From Tragedy to Triumph: Principled Solutions for Rebuilding Lives and Communities

[applegrove]

1. Need we say more?

From Tragedy to Triumph: Principled Solutions for Rebuilding Lives and Communities
by Edwin Meese III, Stuart M. Butler, and Kim R. Holmes

"Congress should reorder its spending priorities, not just add new money while other money is being wasted. Now is the time to shift resources to their most important uses and away from lower-priority uses to use taxpayer dollars more effectively. It is critical that America focus on building capabilities for responding to a catastrophic disaster, not on catering to the wish lists of cities, parishes or counties, states, and stakeholders"

http://www.heritage.org/Research/GovernmentReform/sr05.cfm

Now getting people to pay progressive taxes is "new money". Instead they want the money for Katrina to come from wasted spending that comes from "wish lists" of cities, parishes, counties, states & stakeholders.

Apparently - we have a new definition for "old money".

BAIT & SWITCH

[Maestro]

2. The Heritage Foundation is well known

repuke, ultra conservative site. Those people are freaks!

[Jack Rabbit]

3. My own take on the Heritage Foundation

From Democratic Underground
Dated February 20, 2002

Lies and Statistics
By Jack Rabbit

It might be noted that in all of Mr. Rector's citing of statistics, data and graphs to illustrate his point, he seldom reveals anything else about the studies which he cites. Were these randomly chosen cases? What was the sample size in these studies? Anyone who has studied statistics knows that a larger sample will better reflect the universe that the data purports to represent. Finally, who performed that study? Was it an independent group of social scientists? Or was it a group who made an assertion about welfare being evil and went looking for facts to fit the pre-ordained conclusion? One would have to spend a great deal of time researching that; that's time most us don't have.

These questions might not arise if the Heritage Foundation were not so predictable. The Heritage Foundation is a conservative research and educational institute - in other words, a think tank with a partisan mission. Their mission statement makes clear that they are formulating and promoting "conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."

Given this, should we even expect intellectual objectivity from the Heritage Foundation? Or should we just expect them to formulate talking points for right-wing politicians?

Overall, Mr. Rector makes many specious arguments. In his 1999 testimony, he argued that Food Stamps counted as income in offsetting child poverty in an attempt to invalidate arguments that welfare reform had hurt the poor; however, in 2001, without stating that this was no longer the case, Rector attacked Food Stamps as part of a network of welfare that he blames for continued poverty. Is Rector saying that if aid offsets poverty, then it contributes to poverty? That seems to be the right-wing argument. In fact, Rector seems to be setting up the idea that all means-tested aid to the poor saps their ambition. His argument about welfare causing illegitimacy and in turn causing crime is almost laughable. While he has some reason to suggest that the old welfare rules discouraged beneficiaries from getting married, to turn around to say that illegitimacy causes crime is dreadful. How many of those illegitimate criminals were born to comfortably middle-class women with a future? Would Rector seriously argue that the child of an unmarried professional who chose to remain single is just as likely to turn to a life of crime as the child of a poor, inner-city teenager?

Read more.