Senate emergency spending bill has $20b in pork

[holtjv]

I, and a lot of people rightly slam the press. But in this case, I'm glad someone is reporting this kind of amazing crap.

The best most disgusting part: "The new bill also includes $13 million for “ewe replacement and retention,” $24 million for sugar beets growers and $95 million for dairy producers.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the bill contains “enough in each of the four food groups for a balanced meal.”

And it includes $3.5 million for the Capitol’s guided–tour program and $20 million for, in part, insect infestation control in Nevada, thanks to Majority Leader Harry Reid."


========
Charles Hurt, The Examiner
Mar 27, 2007 9:57 AM (5 hrs ago)
Current rank: # 1 of 21,368
WASHINGTON - Like their counterparts in the House, the Senate has larded its version of an “emergency” war spending bill with nearly $20 billion in pork-barrel outlays, including $100 million for the two major political parties’ 2008 presidential conventions.

The $121 billion bill includes $102 billion for the troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as $14 billion for Hurricane Katrina aid and more than $4 billion for “emergency farm relief.”

“Congress will have to make the choice between booze and balloons or bullets and body armor,” John Hart, a spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., told The Examiner on Monday. Coburn and a handful of other senators hope to shame their colleagues into stripping the pork out of the war spending bill.

The Senate bill is $18 billion more than President Bush requested for military operations. The House bill, which passed last week, exceeded the administration’s request by $21 billion and included money for spinach growers, peanut storage and citrus farmers.

If the Senate bill goes to conference committee as written, the two chambers may find themselves fighting over the best cuts of pork.

Coburn and his fellow pork foes will offer a series of amendments this week aimed at eliminating fat domestic spending or redirecting it to crucial needs for soldiers, sailors and airmen.

“Maybe this is what Democrats mean by ‘phased redeployment’,” Hart said.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., Monday defended the extra spending, describing it as “common sense and good economics.”

“Funding for the war is not the only critical need worthy of the supplemental spending,” he said. The war “must not obliterate every other concern.”

The $100 million for the political party conventions — $50 million for the Democratic convention in Denver and $50 million for the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn. — is included in a section described as “Katrina recovery, veterans’ care and for other purposes.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee noted that the committee provided roughly $50 million to help defray the costs of policing the 2004 conventions. A senate staffer pointed out, however, that the 2004 funding earned approval through the normal appropriations process rather than the less-stringent “emergency” process permitted for the current bill.

The new bill also includes $13 million for “ewe replacement and retention,” $24 million for sugar beets growers and $95 million for dairy producers.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the bill contains “enough in each of the four food groups for a balanced meal.”

And it includes $3.5 million for the Capitol’s guided–tour program and $20 million for, in part, insect infestation control in Nevada, thanks to Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Among the other beneficiaries of the Senate “emergency” war bill is the tree assistance program, including, specifically, Christmas trees.

“This bill is both literally and figuratively a Christmas tree,” said one Senate staffer who has studied the bill.

churt@dcexaminer.com

[Joeaksa]

Gosh, and the Democrats said that once they took over that everything would change!!

Guess it changed so that now their PORK bills were passed.

We need to evict the lot of them. Throw ALL OF THEM OUT and get new legislators. TERM LIMITS!!!!

[Mr_Wizard]

I have read or heard this point of view presented before. "How about the bills get voted on individually." This way there would be no pork. The public would then see the amount of ridiculous spending that goes on in government. Oh wait, this will never happen because the congressmen / women and senators constituents would see just how often their representatives are absent from votes. JMHO

[rdk409]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
We need to evict the lot of them. Throw ALL OF THEM OUT and get new legislators. TERM LIMITS!!!!

+1

Term Limits and the true end of Corporate Lobbying...

[holtjv]

I've never heard a decent explanation against term limits. There's the "if I leave after 4/8 years, I'll just be figuring out how to be a successful politician".

That's hilarious.

I simply can't believe the audacity of the Senate. I hope there's appropriate outrage.

Maybe I'll get some "term limits NOW!" bumper stickers...

[Joeaksa]

As well agree with Bill in that I never could figure out why bills were not voted in one by one. This would eliminate the adding of additional things to any bill.

Rick Lee where are you when we need a good explanation of how things work in DC!!??

[Rick Lee]

In fairness to the Dems, they actually did make an attempt to make some changes. But I'm not sure if it's window dressing or just was bungled. When they took over, they changed the earmarks rules to require members to put their names on the earmarks and to pledge that each project did not benefit them or their spouse personally. The problem with this has been that the language of the new rules has been so unclear that the ethics committee has had to keep handing out clarifications and delays in implementing the changes. I can't figure out if it's a real attempt to clean things up but became a clusterf&ck or is just pure window dressing, feel-good, do-nothingism.

Either way, Tom Coburn is a true taxpayers' hero. No man has tried harder against bi-partisan mountains to end this nonsense. Cobrun is also an OB-GYN, who goes home to OK on the weekend to continue his practice, which was ok under House rules when he was in the House, but the Senate does not allow. IIRC, Coburn has ignored the Senate rules on this and I say more power to him. It's nice to see someone have a real job and maintain some connection to the real world.

[jluetjen]

To be honest, for a bill that is supposed to represent a "mandate by the votors" to put a deadline on the war in Iraq, the only way that it would pass the house was for the Democrats to load it up with pork in order to get the needed votes. Without the pork, it would never have passed on it's own merits.

So much for the "mandate".

[Rick Lee]

Originally posted by jluetjen
To be honest, for a bill that is supposed to represent a "mandate by the votors" to put a deadline on the war in Iraq, the only way that it would pass the house was for the Democrats to load it up with pork in order to get the needed votes. Without the pork, it would never have passed on it's own merits.

So much for the "mandate".

On that note...

Dangerous Demagoguery
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, March 27, 2007

One of the dangers in being a demagogue is that some of your own supporters -- those who take you literally -- can turn against you when you start letting your actions be influenced by realities, instead of following the logic of your ringing rhetoric.

That is what seems to be happening to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other liberal Democrats in Congress.

Anti-war protesters in Washington and outside her home in San Francisco are denouncing Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats for not cutting off the money to fight the war in Iraq.

If the war in Iraq is such an unnecessary and futile expenditure of blood and treasure as Pelosi et al. have been saying, why not put an end to it?

But to do that would mean taking responsibility for the consequences -- and those consequences would be disastrous and lasting. They would probably still be lasting when the 2008 elections come around.

The Democrats cannot risk that. They have taken over Congress by a very clever and very disciplined strategy of constantly criticizing the Republicans, without taking the risk of presenting an alternative for whose results they can be held responsible.

There is no sign that they want to change that politically winning strategy now. Their non-binding resolutions against the war are a perfect expression of that strategy.

These resolutions put them on record as being against the war without taking the responsibility for ending it.

Unfortunately for the Congressional Democrats, their left-wing supporters have taken the anti-war rhetoric of Pelosi, Murtha, et al., at face value and consider it a betrayal that they talk the talk but will not walk the walk.

It has been painfully clear that Speaker Pelosi was serious only about scoring political points. Her big grin when she won a narrow vote for a non-binding resolution was grotesque against the background of a life-and-death issue.

You don't grin over a political ploy that you have pulled when men's lives are at stake.

It is not just Congressional politicians who are so preoccupied with scoring points against the administration that they show no sign of concern for what the actual consequences of their words or actions will be for troops in the field, nations in the Middle East, or the global war on terror.

Much of the media is similarly caught up in scoring points on Iraq. For example, the cover of the March 18th issue of the New York Times magazine section featured a story about women in the military who said that they had been raped in Iraq.

A week later, they had to print a correction, after discovering that one of these women had not even been to Iraq. But any unsubstantiated charge against the American military rates headline coverage, even if there is no space for anything positive in Iraq.

There is apparently no space even to assess the extent to which the increase of American troop strength in Iraq has reduced the deaths of our troops from terrorist attacks. Nor is there apparently much space to discuss the implications of the return of Iraqis from the less violent provinces to their homes in Baghdad.

Indeed, there has apparently never been any space to discuss the fact that most provinces in Iraq have not had the levels of violence featured day in and day out in the media.

The demagoguery of the Democrats has already put them in the position where a successful conclusion of the Iraq war before the 2008 elections can be a political disaster for them.

If the recent increase in the number of troops in Iraq, and their freer hand in dealing with the terrorists there, reduces the level of violence enough to stabilize Iraq enough for American troops to start coming home before the 2008 elections, the Democrats will have lost their gamble.

Only an American defeat in Iraq can ensure the Democrats' political victory next year. Their only strategy is to sabotage the chances for a military victory in Iraq without being held responsible for a defeat.

That is the corner that they have painted themselves into with their demagoguery that even their own supporters see through.

[Seahawk]

Sowell is my favorite pundit.

Term limits is the fulcrum for change. Serve and go home.

[on-ramp]

Anyone have any better ideas of how to spend the money?

Until then, stop complaining.

That's what the government does, spend taxpayers money. If they didn't, you'd complain that it's being horded up and not spent.

WOooooo

[Rick Lee]

And my favorite saying is:

"A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon you're talking real money."

[holtjv]

Originally posted by on-ramp
Anyone have any better ideas of how to spend the money?

Until then, stop complaining.

That's what the government does, spend taxpayers money. If they didn't, you'd complain that it's being horded up and not spent.

WOooooo

All I can say is, "wow".

[stevepaa]

Originally posted by Seahawk
Sowell is my favorite pundit.

So has he written anything against repubs? Or is he just a mouthpiece for the admin.

[Rick Lee]

He's an econ. professor first and a pundit second. And yes, he slams Repubs too.

[stevepaa]

Hard to imagine from someone saying this.

Only an American defeat in Iraq can ensure the Democrats' political victory next year. Their only strategy is to sabotage the chances for a military victory in Iraq without being held responsible for a defeat.

This sure sounds like something from the WH.
The presumption is that we can get success by following the admin's lead.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by on-ramp
Anyone have any better ideas of how to spend the money?

Until then, stop complaining.

That's what the government does, spend taxpayers money. If they didn't, you'd complain that it's being horded up and not spent.

WOooooo

Yes. Let me keep more of my money to spend as I like...after all, i was the one that earned it.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by stevepaa
Hard to imagine from someone saying this.

Only an American defeat in Iraq can ensure the Democrats' political victory next year. Their only strategy is to sabotage the chances for a military victory in Iraq without being held responsible for a defeat.
...

Yes, it is hard to imagine anyone in the media, even an economist, telling the truth...

[svandamme]

those things are in there to get the votes from those who would otherwise vote against the war spending...

it's a bribe so to speak, because now they have to vote for the bill, to get stuff in their own state done...
and they have to get things done to get re-elected

[cashflyer]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
TERM LIMITS!!!!

Maybe I just don't "get it". I could never understand why America can't get term limits in place for senators, although it was determined and proven that term limits were a good thing with the presidency. I personally do not believe the philosophy of "keeping experienced players in place". I believe the philosophy of getting new ideas in place, bringing in fresh perspectives, and eliminating any system that serves only itself. But that's me.

Originally posted by on-ramp
Anyone have any better ideas of how to spend the money?
That's what the government does, spend taxpayers money. If they didn't, you'd complain that it's being horded up and not spent.

If they spent less, and more wisely, then they could tax less - leaving me more of my money in my pocket for my family. And none for ewes.

And I know that Stijn is correct - pork is a bribe, wrapped in a social cause. I know we can never trim all the fat away, but too much fat causes clogged arteries and death.