If a bankrupt cruise company, its half-finished ships and taxpayers left holding the bill don't spell opportunity to you, you're just not ready for Capitol Hill. A $1.1 billion federal loan guarantee was pushed through Congress in 1999 to help American Classic Voyages build cruise ships in Senator Trent Lott's hometown of Pascagoula, Miss. The company hit the rocks last fall, citing a decline in tourism due to terrorism and leaving its debts unpaid and its ships at the dock. Republican Congressman Gene Taylor of Mississippi came up with a plan to solve this pork-barrel mess: more pork barrel. Taylor wants...
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