With the rescue efforts involving Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have come numerous questions concerning how the money will be spent, and more fundamentally, where the revenue will come from to offset the spending on the relief.

At the outset, it should be said that virtually everyone recognizes that Katrina was a devastating hurricane, one of the worst in the history of the United States and that Rita was a very serious storm in its own right. Almost no one, and especially not New Yorkers grateful for the support and assistance we received after the 9/11 catastrophe, begrudge legitimate assistance to the people of the Gulf Coast.

Still, some requests should be dismissed out of hand. For example, Louisiana's congressional delegation has put forward a plan for $250 billion in aid for that state alone. As the Washington Post notes, this would be $50,000 for each resident of the state, not including amounts from businesses, insurers, and national charities. It is difficult to quarrel with the paper's conclusion that "like looters who seize six televisions when their homes have room for only two, the Louisiana legislators are out to grab more federal cash than they could possibly spend usefully".

Further, the amounts to be spent on Katrina have also caused much examination of the impact of new spending on the federal budget, and appropriately so. Even before Katrina, the budgets have been in deficit, although the size of the shortfalls has been declining in recent months as the economic recovery has fueled the growth of revenues. With the added spending on Katrina, Democrats have rather predictably called for the elimination of projected new tax reductions or at even a rollback of the cuts enacted at the beginning of the Bush Administration.

Before any thought should be given of postponing tax relief, which has been one of the engines of the current recovery, however, there should be very careful scrutiny of the current levels of federal spending, a concept that has gained a bit of traction in the past week or two. Republican maverick and presidential hopeful John McCain, for example, targeted two major pieces of legislation - the recently enacted (and widely derided as pork) $286 billion highway bill, featuring an appropriation for the famous Alaska Bridge to Nowhere from Ketchican (population 8000) to Gravina Island (population 50), as well as the new Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors.

The McCain position has gained considerable support on the internet, with numerous bloggers challenging politicians to identify and oppose pork projects in their districts. Incredibly enough, and to her credit, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi actually did come up with a significant project in her home district in San Francisco that might be subject to cuts. There has been considerable foot dragging on the part of other legislators, however.

Historically, Republicans have been the party of restrained spending, at least on domestic projects. But the Republican-dominated Congresses in recent years have been very willing to go on spending sprees, and President Bush has not helped matters by declining to veto even a single appropriations bill. The efforts by Senator McCain and others to put both his party and the Democrats back on the right fiscal path are very welcome at a time that Katrina forces us to consider priorities. Ending tax relief may not be the answer, but neither is the philosophy of the endless free lunch.