There's No Politically Correct Way to Say This

A quote from a CNN article about a New York Times editorial:

The Times added that it hoped Secretary of State Colin Powell was embarrassed to announce "the initial measly aid offer" of $15 million. "That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities" in January.

Did you catch that? I can't really say I'm happy to spend millions/billions on aid (I'd much rather do what Jeff did, and donate my own money), but for fuck's sake, the initial offer was less than half of what the Republicant's plan to spend for Bush's inaguration parties?

The sheer excess of spending more than $30 million on a party (must be all the pure Colombian that's gonna go up the President's nose) aside, "miserly" is a nice way of saying it. A lot of other, far less politically-correct phrases are running through my mind right now.