$37,262 and $425,000

By Baxter

The Republicans have a lot of nerve, lecturing the Obama Administration about spending.

While their myopic minorities on Capitol Hill are screaming that the stimulus bill is nothing but spending (well — duh), two of their party "bright lights" are defending a little spending of their own.

Newly elected RNC Chair Michael Steele says it was perfectly okay that his failed 2006 Senate campaign paid more than $37,000 to a now-defunct company owned by his sister for work that was never performed. What is it with the Steele family, that they crash and burn at everything they do?

And Florida Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp has billed his state's taxpayers nearly half a million dollars for — wait for it — 365 flights that he and his family took on state planes. (Just to put this all in context, former Governor Buddy MacKay took a state plane 19 times when he was in office.) Caught red-handed, Kottkamp is reimbursing the state $12,974. We don't understand exactly how that math works out, but never mind.

You see, Kottkamp works in Tallahassee, but he and his wife travel back and forth between there and the million-dollar home they own in Fort Myers. We cats are sure that the thousands of desperate Fort Myers residents whose homes are being foreclosed on — and who now are waiting in line at churches for free food — would find some good use for $12,974. Or for that matter, $37,262. But, like all right-wing Christians we've encountered, the Kottkamps appear oblivious to human suffering.

Which brings us back to those Republican "insurgents" on Capitol Hill. We cats HISS.