Charles Taylor Stands Up to Families of Flight 93Boy, does this guy know how to choose his battles.
Even by Congressional standards, Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC) is a world champion waffler and equivocator. Rather than take a stand on the controversial CAFTA vote, he came up with the lame excuse that his voting card had failed. And rather than admit that he’d gotten special attention from Jack Abramoff, he quibbled over whether a group of lobbyists all getting together to give him money was indeed a “fundraiser.”
But when the families of the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 want a federal grant to build a memorial, Taylor’s there to be seemingly the only man in government standing in the way. Why?
For Taylor, a large landowner in the mountains of western Carolina, the issue comes down to principle: The federal government is already the largest landowner in the country, and he believes that no additional tax dollars should go to more land buying for this or any other memorial.
The requested sum is $10 million, which would be used to build the memorial in the field near Shanksville, PA where the plane crashed.
Remember that this is the guy who inserted a $3 million earmark for Abramoff’s client the wealthy Saginaw Chippewa to build a new school. The tribe needed the money so badly that they’ve since refunded it.
But $10 million to the victims of 9/11? Naw. Do they even have a lobbyist?
