Around the time that the President was pushing the prescription drugs benefit, I wrote our wonderful Senator Susan Collins urging her not to support this bloated, ridiculous piece of legislation. I received written a reply today. I'm too lazy to retype the senator's whole response, but I can sum it up for you in plain English:

Dear Scott,

While this piece of legislation is far from perfect, I decided to support it anyway because it is laden with pork that is going to make me look really good to some key constituents. Sure, it's going to cost the American taxpayer an arm and a leg and isn't really going to solve much of anything, but Maine managed to get a giant pile of pet projects stapled onto this bill, so how could I say no?

Sincerely, Susan Collins


For those of you keeping score at home, no Republican administration in the last 75 years has actually shrunk the size of government.