[Sammie]

Originally posted by Mike F+Jan 11 2005, 11:17 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Mike F @ Jan 11 2005, 11:17 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

$400 million over 5 years works out to $80 million a year. In other words, Martin hasn't increased his commitment to disaster relief from last week's offer. What's the big deal with this announcement? Are we supposed to be impressed? It seems to be much to do about nothing.

If you'd read the CNN article, you would have seen that it's not $80 million per year (which would be a significant increase over a flat $80 million in it's own right) but instead:

"The money includes $215 million in emergency aid and $130 million over five years for reconstruction"[/b][/quote]
I read the whole CNN article. $400 million over 5 years is still $80 million a year and I'm still not impressed. He was two weeks late in sending the D.A.R.T. and then ended up sending them to a location that was over-run by aid-workers.

Chances are good that by the time Martin gets around to spending some of that $215 million in emergency aid money he'll be too late for that too. Which means he'll change gears and want to spend $130 million on reconstruction only to discover he missed the boat there too.

Let's face it, we've got a prime minister who has diarrhea of the mouth. Meaning that the words keep gushing from his mouth but when all is said and done neither he nor we have a clue what he just said.

In other words, he never remembers what he promises long enough to carry them out and he usually dithers around doing nothing so long that many people forget to notice that he hasn't carried out another one of his many, many promises again. Making a promise to spend $400 million over 5 years plays right into this promise-and-dither strategy of his.

I'm sure the majority of this money promised to emergency aid and reconstruction over there will end up in the hands of the Liberal party faithful and their friends and will be spent wisely in laying the groundwork for victory in the next Federal election. :angry: