Why Are Tax Dollars Going to Give Defense Contractor a Sweetheart Half-Billion Dollar "Loan"?

I'm flabbergasted - even when the Bushies keep outdoing themselves in amazing me (and not in a positive way). I saw this in a link at Buzzflash, then read the piece at the Boston Herald.

Here's a snippet:

The Senate’s offer of up to a $500 million loan to the nation’s third-largest defense contractor is just the latest smelly pork addition to a very bad bill. This unneeded favor is one more reason for President Bush to issue his first veto of what was supposed to be an emergency spending bill to fund military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and hurricane relief.

The contractor, Northrop Grumman Corp., operates shipyards in Mississippi and Louisiana that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina. They are back at work on Navy contracts and the company is in court with its insurer over how much more, if any, it is owed for repair costs.

Under the provision adopted 52-47, with both parties split on the merits, Northrop Grumman would have to repay the Navy anything it wins from the insurer. The House earlier adopted a slightly different provision in its version of the bill, making $250 million available to all shipyards on the Gulf Coast.

The White House and the Navy both opposed the measure, which might have passed the Senate only because the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, to whom other senators always want to be able to turn for a pork-barrel favor, is from - you guessed it - Mississippi, Sen. Thad Cochran.

Bailing out the company in this way is a bad precedent. Business owners ought not be given the idea that they can count on the government, instead of carefully selected insurance, for disaster losses.

The president threatened a veto if the “emergency” spending bill exceeded $94 billion. As approved by the Senate (by a 71-21 vote) it stood at $109 billion. House Republican leaders are vowing to hold the line on spending. (Their earlier version of the bill was $17 billion less than the current Senate version.) The nation - and their own president - are depending on them.

And Bush - to preserve his own shaky credentials for fiscal prudence - should get that veto pen ready.