Contrast and Compare

First from Friday’s Wall Street Journal comes the following report:

WASHINGTON — An unusual alliance of mortgage bankers and consumer groups is criticizing a planned $3.4 billion program to compensate Mississippi victims of Hurricane Katrina, saying the grants of as much as $150,000 carry virtually no restrictions.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is taking the heat because it advised Mississippi officials to give homeowners wider discretion than usual in spending the federal grants intended for rebuilding homes. Critics say the new, relaxed rules are an invitation to fraud and abuse, and nothing would stop recipients from gambling away the grant money…
The dispute involves a HUD-approved state program funded by $3.4 billion in federal taxpayer money. The funds, which have been appropriated, will be distributed directly to an estimated 30,000 Mississippi homeowners who live outside a flood zone and suffered flood damage.

And next, Mr. James Madison Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution, 4th President of the United States, and apparently a rather sarcastic man when goaded by the stupidity of others.

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

Madison was voicing his disapproval of Congress appropriating $15,000 to assist some French refugees in 1792.