War Funding Bill

I was talking to a fellow today who really believes that our bills are published clean..he was shocked to learn of the non-related items actually included in bills and that votes are actually bought and sold for special interest money...once again I'm so happy that we have a Democrat controlled House and Senate.....

Pulled from CFIF so it's not very clean in the re-post....


"Emergency War Funding" Bill... For Spinach Growers and Guided Capitol Tours?
storytext('section');

Congress Cynically Slabs Pork onto Critical War Funding Bills

Didn't majority Democrats campaign against pork-barrel spending and earmarks on their way to victory last November?

Judging by the pork-stuffed "emergency war funding" bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives this week, such vote-buying promises are nothing but a distant memory.
The House's bill, innocuously and deceptively entitled the "U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act," does provide some $96 billion to fund our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

How gracious of them.

Unfortunately, the House bill also contains $28 billion in some of the most astonishing, cynical and egregious pork-barrel spending projects in memory. Additionally, the House's version demands American retreat from the Iraq battlefield by September 1, 2008.

For its part, the Senate's emergency battlefield spending bill does no better. Like the House's bill, the Senate bill slaps $20 billion in pork-barrel spending along with approximately $100 billion that actually goes to... the troops. And like the House's bill, the Senate bill also sets an artificial deadline for battlefield retreat.

It's bad enough that the bills undercut our troops and encourage terrorists by setting wholly arbitrary withdrawal deadlines. In doing so, these bills send the signal that the terrorists can lie low, or temporarily flee Iraq to the safer havens of Iran or Syria, and return in approximately one year when Pelosi, Reid & Co. pull our fighting men and women out.

But even worse, the bills soak American taxpayers with pork projects that have absolutely nothing to do with sustaining our troops through the funds and equipment that they need to maintain the war against terror in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Among other wasteful measures, the Senate's larded bill includes the following items, which have no place in an emergency war bill:

-$100 million for the two major political parties' 2008 conventions - $50 million for the Democrats' convention in Denver, Colorado, and $50 million for the Republicans' convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.
-$3.5 million for guided Capitol tours.
-$13 million for something called the "Ewe Lamb Replacement and Retention Program."
-$24 million for sugar beet growers, $3 million for sugar cane, $31 million to extend the "Milk Income Loss Contract" program and $2.1 million for crop production losses.
-$40 million for the "Tree Assistance Program."
-$20 million for "insect infestation damage reimbursements" in Nevada, Idaho and Utah.
-$166 million toward "fisheries disaster relief."
-$25 million for "asbestos abatement at the Capitol Power Plant,"
-and $23 million for "geothermal research and development."

Surely, troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq will be relieved to know that the Senate is looking out for them by focusing on such projects. The House bill, unsurprisingly, is no better.
Among the House bill's gems:

-$74 million for "peanut storage," $25 million for spinach growers and $283 million for dairy farmers.
-$4 million for the "Office of Women's Health" at the Food and Drug Administration.
-$5 million for tropical fish breeders and transporters for losses due to virus.
-$60 million for the National Marine Fisheries Service, "to be distributed among fishing communities, Indian tribes, individuals, small businesses, including fishermen, fish processors, and related businesses, and other persons for assistance to mitigate the economic and other social effects caused by" commercial fishery failures.
-$400 million for "wildland fire suppression."

Obviously, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's commitment to earmark reform and fiscal responsibility had the lifespan of a gnat.

Regardless of the merit of each of these items, they simply do not belong in an emergency war spending bill that is crucial to sustaining our armed servicemen and servicewomen at a crucial time.

Perhaps Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R - Kentucky) summarized this disgraceful legislation best when he said that it contains "enough in each of the four food groups for a balanced meal."

Combined, the House and Senate bills simply make a mockery of the serious business of wartime troop funding, and are music to the ears of the hysterical "cut and run" anti-war Left. Members of Congress should beware, however, a 2008 electoral backlash if voters realize that they're fundamentally unserious about our troops' welfare and the war on terror.
Mr. President, ready your veto pen.

postdate 3/30/07 ('story');