This one obviously became "A Bridge Too Far" fetched, as Alaska Abandons Infamous 'Bridge to Nowhere' included in last year's budget as part of the traditional pork-barrel spending that goes on in Washington -- usually following long speeches about trimming the fat.

There is probably nothing more universally consistent in a campaign speech than the promise to cut federal spending. Of course politicians are equally consistent on failing to do so once they are in office. However, in the case of this infamous bridge to an Island of a few hundred residences, the political heat, under the proverbial magnifying glass, was too much.

The public outrage and direct lobbying from various budget watchdog groups and with the support of Senator Tom Coburn, Representative Jeff Flake, and Representative Mark Kirk, the State of Alaska has officially abandoned plans to pursue the infamous Gravina Bridge. Money is still earmarked for the state, but the recently elected new governor decided to drop the project.

Wall Street and its scoreboard stock exchanges are jubilant with the 0.5% cut in the prime rate. But all is not well. As expected, gold and oil hit record highs on the news yesterday and the sky's the limit. The dollar will be losing value and foreign investors will be buying increasing amounts of our equities, including land, buildings, public and private companies. Expect American ownership to decrease.

The fact that the Federal Reserve sought to pacify investment bankers and individuals who made bad deals in an effort to shore up what was starting to look like big trouble in the "heartland" is not, I think, worthy of celebration. Yes, we should be grateful that Ben Bernanke and crew are keeping a watchful eye on the pulse of the economy and did not wait until we drowned to throw in a lifeline. But for this conservative group to make the cut they had to think things were bad, and that is not exactly heartening news.

Transportation stocks are not doing well this morning, and neither are delivery companies. FedEx Corp (NYSE: FDX) and United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) are showing losses or treading water, even though the overall market is notably up. Why? Fuel costs.

We heard a lot of nice sentiment from President Bush Tuesday night but, alas, it is another case of too little, too late. (Or... is it never too late?) It would be great if the $18 billion in "pork barrel" spending he mentioned is really cut by restricting the ease with which our legislature can attach its pet projects to entirely unrelated bills under the cover of darkness. This is the equivalent of about seven weeks of spending on the Iraq war, at current levels.

It also begs the question as to what the administration was thinking until now, as we spent perhaps $100 to $120 billion during his watch on an abundance of special projects. If we give the President and his team credit for on-the-job-training the first year, even though every candidate makes cutting government spending a part of his platform, the administration should still have done something earlier, especially with Republicans steering this ship! This is very embarrassing -- and shameful!

It makes me think the attitude in Washington was that 'the Democrats got theirs, now we're going to get ours'.