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Libertarians Call Dr. Seuss Memorial Much Green Eggs And Pork
By Jim Burns

CNS Senior Staff Writer

December 05, 2000


(CNSNews.com) - A proposed memorial in Springfield, Massachusetts to its native son Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, the author of The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham and other children's books, has drawn the ire of the Libertarian Party, especially because of what it will cost the federal government: $400,000.

The Springfield Library and Museum Association would build the memorial. Four-hundred thousand dollars was inserted into a Department of Housing and Urban Development 2001 appropriations bill by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Representative Richard Neal (D-MA). Congress is expected to vote on the HUD bill this week during its lame duck session.

Neal even composed a verse when announcing the appropriation in Washington:

We love Ted Geisel, yes we do. We love the Grinch. We love the Whos. But most of all, our whole fam, loves to read Green Eggs and Ham. And so, in honor of Springfield's wonderful writing man, we're proud of this grant from Uncle Sam.

The Libertarians are not impressed, calling the memorial wasteful pork spending. The party has its own verse as well: We do not like it, Pork-I-Am. This spendaholic, Uncle Sam. We do not like those R's and D's, who can't resist more subsidies. We do not like the cash they waste, sky high taxes spent in haste. Frugality, they have erased, and every bill, of pork it tastes.

We do not like it on the Hill, when snuck into HUD's spending bill. It shouldn't pass. We bet it will. More money from the public till. We would not vote for Pork-I-Am or subsidize green eggs and ham. Job training programs for the Grinch? We would not even budge an inch. And if a cat needed a hat? Free enterprise is there for that, the Libertarians continued.

The Libertarians concluded: Now, just in case you are obtuse, I'll make it clear, with no excuse. We would not do it for a moose, we would not do it for a goose. And as you may by now deduce, we'd vote 'no' on Doctor Seuss.

Officials in Springfield say Geisel's widow has contributed $1 million to the memorial, thus getting the project within $400,000 of its funding goal. Neal vows if Congress doesn't pass the appropriation this year, he will try again next year.

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