The $82 billion “emergency spending bill” passed the US Senate yesterday (100 to 0) and was signed by President Bush today. (No word yet if the small plane that encroached into the DC no-fly zone was an angry taxpayer intent on registering his displeasure.)
I don’t so much object to the money as I do to the Real ID bill, which was tacked onto this thing in order to slide it through the Senate with as little chance for debate as possible. None of the MSM seem to be concerned about this, and the way everyone in Washington has presented it, it’s hard to blame them.
“Why heck, hasn’t everyone been complaining about the illegal alien problem? Well we’re providing funding to finish the border fence (yeah, I bet that’ll stop ’em) and we’re going to make sure they can’t get driver’s licenses (and I bet that will stop them from driving–it works so well when we do it to drunk drivers).”
And you can bet that all those databases that the states will be required to create and link won’t be misused, and that every retailer in the US will demand to scan it so they can have all your contact info in a nice electronic package so they can just target (market) the daylights out of you.
Someone once said we get the government we deserve. Well, it seems that we’re going to get it, good and hard.