Causality for conservatives.

Consider the following reports. First, there's this:

[The U.S.] Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.

House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year...

"Honestly, they would have loved to have funded it, but there were just so many priorities," says Jenny Manley, spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee. "They didn't have any flexibility in such a tight fiscal year."...

Zitnay asked for $19 million, and 34 Democratic and six Republican members of Congress signed a letter endorsing the budget request.

Then there's this:

“The [U.S.] government awarded 70 percent of its contracts for Hurricane Katrina work without full competition, wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the process,” according to a new report from the House Committee on Government Reform’s minority office.

For full marks, discuss the possible connection between these two incidents.

For bonus marks, suggest which sorry piece of shit should spend the rest of his life at hard labour breaking rocks over this breathtaking corruption. It is not necessary to single out a specific individual -- identifying a political party in general will be sufficient.