Bonehead of the Week: Representative Don Young (R-AK)

I don't know if you guys have seen the news lately, but apparently the Senate is launching a federal investigation into an earmark that was altered after it was passed by congress but before it was signed by the President. The earmark was originally part of a highway funding bill that was approved for one specific part of a Florida highway and was worth $10 million.

After the bill was approved by Congress, apparently Rep. Don Young (R-AK) changed the wording of the bill to send those $10 million to another part of Florida's interstate, "Coconut Road." His spokesperson said that "It was an error [in the bill]. It was originally supposed to say Coconut Road so he changed it."

Now, with all due respect to Rep. Young, and not even considering the fact that somehow he has enough money or even feels the need to hire his own representative spokesperson (hmm isn't he supposed to be a representative of the people) you can't just go around altering bills after they have been approved by Congress. You might be thinking that its harmless for a Representative to go in and fix an error within a bill, but its really not.

This isn't a matter of fixing a mistake, it's a matter of rules, customs, and what is fundamentally right and wrong. How can a congressman have enough independent authority to alter a bill before it reaches the President without anyone finding out. What if that representative had said "the bill was supposed to say $100 million, so I changed it." That congressman is then assuming that everyone would have voted the same with a $90 million increase, which is patently false. Who knows if this bill would have passed if those voting had known the money was going to "Coconut Road."

In essence this guy was acting as his own Congress. He took something that was passed, re-wrote it, then felt that he had the authority to then re-pass that legislation, all by himself. DUDE! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!

Sorry I had to speak in layman's terms there, but it's just so dumb that this guy could break the rules so blatently, and then not even feel as if he had broken the rules at all. What if someone did that and approved more money to fund the Iraq war, to fund a terrorist organization, to fund the KKK? He thinks he's "fixing" the bill, but I think he's the one that needs the fixing. Eh, whatever, we can't expect all of our representatives to have read the Constitution right?

righhhhttttt (sarcasm)