In wage bill fight, Big Dig is a weapon (Boston Globe)

[Eugene]

In wage bill fight, Big Dig is a weapon
Kennedy barbs draw GOP slap

By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | January 31, 2007

WASHINGTON -- A weeklong verbal battle between Senator Edward M. Kennedy
and his Republican colleagues over tax breaks tied to the minimum wage increase
turned personal yesterday, when a key Republican senator took the floor and
gave Kennedy a stinging, two-word rebuttal: Big Dig.

Kennedy, an influential Massachusetts Democrat, had used much of the morning
to continue his one-man tirade against Republicans. He skewered them for "greed"
and "arrogance" over their efforts to block a higher minimum wage; Kennedy
at one point even said that he was running out of civilized ways to describe
the Republican who had stalled the bill.

-snip-

Then Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican and a leading critic of
wasteful government spending, brought to the Senate chamber a poster-sized
chart depicting two piles of cash.

One pile, labeled $8.3 billion, was the value of small-business tax cuts that
Republicans want to include in a minimum wage bill. The other pile, slightly
larger, representing $8.5 billion, depicted the federal contribution to a certain
controversial public works project in Kennedy's home state.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/31/in_wage_bill_fight_big_dig_is_a_weapon