Harkin says President can’t be trusted with tax dollars

Senator Tom Harkin says Americans “cannot trust” President Bush with taxpayer dollars any more. The Senate yesterday voted unanimously to give the Bush Administration that 25-billion more it requested for Iraq, but attached strings, like requiring monthly reports to Congress and forbidding officials from shifting money from one area of the Defense Department to another. The U.S. House is contemplating even stricter spending limits. Harkin says “we just simply cannot trust George Bush any longer with taxpayers’ money.” Harkin says hundreds of millions, perhaps billions have been wasted in Iraq. Harkin says he’s like to have a special House/Senate committee set up to examine how every American taxdollar has been spent in Iraq. On another spending issue, Harkin’s critical of a Bush Administration plan to shift homeland security money from rural areas to cities. Harkin says the plan is to divert 55 million from states like Iowa and spent it instead in America’s biggest cities. Harkin says Iowa needs its share of that money — one million dollars — to plan for an attack of bioterrorism.Harkin says he’s all for helping the nation’s cities prepare for terror attacks, but not in a robbing Peter to pay Paul scheme, especially when Iowa is in the role of Peter.