Ex-presidential yacht may be bought by U.S.

[rainbow4321]

So we can buy back a friggin' yacht but we have no money to send the troops supplies? What are we going to do, send the yacht over there to take the place of the armored vehicles?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/12/10/MNGT9A8PF81.DTL

Washington -- It was auctioned off for $286,000 in 1977 by President Carter in his effort to eliminate symbols of the "imperial presidency." Now Congress has set aside $2 million to help buy back the Sequoia, the onetime presidential yacht, as a museum piece.

The provision is one of many not directly related to government operations that were slipped into a spending bill that will fund 13 Cabinet departments and a host of independent agencies for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

Historians also cheered the funding. "It's one of the great treasures of the United States," said Kim Nielsen, director of the U.S. Navy Museum in Washington. "It's a fantastic piece of Americana that deserves the highest level of preservation."

A congressional Republican leadership aide said the provision was included because of concern that the yacht might be sold, perhaps for use as a riverboat casino.