Thread: House & Senate Democrats use crude tactics in war-end bi

Democrats use crude tactics in war-end bill

April 11, 2007
DENNIS MYERS
Against the Grain

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In April and May 2005, Republican leaders in Congress who had not been able to convince their colleagues to enact a standard national identification card on its merits decided to accomplish it through parliamentary tricks.

They attached the measure to House Resolution 1268, which happened to be a troop-funding bill on the theory that opponents of "Real ID," as it's called, would be too spineless to vote against the troops and too distrustful of the public to believe they could make their case to voters. Democrats promptly proved their point by capitulating without a fight.

"They did it on purpose," Senate Democratic floor leader Harry Reid said April 25, 2005. "They put it on a supplemental [funding measure], which they knew you couldn't stop." Not that Reid tried. Other senators like Dianne Feinstein wanted to try to stop the bill, but Reid refused to permit a fight for fear that the Democrats would be seen as anti-military.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada said, "You know, when they throw everything but the kitchen sink in, things that aren't germane, you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard spot. I obviously wasn't going to vote against our troops."

By contrast, George Bush is perfectly willing to take action against the troops -- he is expected to veto a troop funding bill that got through both houses of Congress in different versions and now must be reconciled. Since it contains a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq, Bush says he'll veto troop funding along with the deadline.

"Democrats will send President Bush a bill that gives our troops the resources they need and a strategy in Iraq worthy of their sacrifices," said Berkley.

The resources our troops need apparently include $20 million to eradicate Mormon crickets in Nevada. That's because the Democrats, who were deeply offended by the willingness of Republicans to use a troop-funding bill to push through an unrelated measure, are themselves using a troop-funding bill to push through all kinds of unrelated appropriations for local projects.

There are amendments that subsidize dairy farmers ($95 million), sugar beet growers in Minnesota ($24 million), a sugar cane cooperative in Hawaii ($3 million), spinach growers in California ($25 million), breeding and transport of fish ($5 million), "ewe lamb replacement and retention" ($13 million), guided tours of the U.S. capitol ($3 million), renovation of congressional office buildings ($16 million), and repair of irrigation ditches ($2 million).

These kinds of something-for-everyone bills are often called Christmas tree bills, and, in this case, it is literally true: $40 million is provided for a "tree assistance program," and the bill defines trees as including Christmas and other ornamental trees. Reid sponsored the Mormon crickets item.

Many amendments were filed without text to explain their purpose any sooner than necessary: "Purpose will be available when the amendment is proposed for consideration," read many of them.

The attachments don't even include repeal of Real ID, just payoffs to local constituencies and powerful lobbies.

Unlike the Democrats two years ago, Republican Rep.'s Dean Heller and Jon Porter of Nevada voted against troop funding and relied on the public to understand why. Heller objected to the war deadline while Porter spoke out against the local project funding.

Berkley voted for the measure because George Bush "wants to send 20,000 more U.S. troops into a civil war with an open-ended mission and a bulls-eye on their back, and I do not support his policy."

The problem is that the Democrats' principled position on the war is fatally undercut by the slimy maneuver of attaching peanut storage in Georgia ($74 million) to legislation of such great moment.

It is a bill that could determine whether U.S. servicepeople live or continue to die.

It discredits good people who worked hard in the election campaign to try to end the war. Nothing can excuse using such a meaningful vehicle for tawdry pork-barreling, and every citizen has a right to be offended.


http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2007/ ... 83615.html

How can we ever stop these politicians? They just do whatever they please, and never care of the consequences to Americans!

They said we import 81% of fish, so why do we have to fund fish???

And that peanut thing, is it for Carter?