fine leaders

The House Resolution (H.R. 1591) and paired Senate Resolution 965 (S. 965) that are crashing down the halls of the capitol represent a excellent look into just how much hasn’t changed when considering the incompetency of our elected officials. The titles of the two resolutions, respectively, are: Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes and; An original bill making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes. Such straight-forward titles for what should be a straight-forward bits of legislation. Both bills are allegedly supplemental spending allocations for Iraq (military and reconstruction funds) that were requested by the President. The total that came from the White House was just under $100 billion dollars – remember, this is supplemental spending, not part of any budget (gotta keep the money on the down low…). The house, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, added $40 billion dollars in spending to the resolution along with a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq; two sides of the same dirty political coin. The deadline will obviously force the President to veto the bill and the money (on the other, dirtier side) is simply to bribe Dems and ‘Pubs to at least initially support the bill…deadline and all. What may happen down the road when the President finds his “VETO” stamp (psst...it’s in the bottom drawer under the Christmas party pictures with Rove playing Santa) is a whole seperate issue. I don’t know if either the House or Senate has the votes to override a veto but we’ll certainly be in for some crappy political theatre. Here are a few things that will no doubt be said by the politicos across the river:

“The President vetoed the bill for more spending to support our troops in Iraq…hater!”

“The House, and the Democrat majority, submarined spending and support for our troops in Iraq by appending a deadline to withdrawal…traitors!”

Of course, support for the troops and the money needed to get that done is not the real issue; it’s the spending and bribing that gets done under the auspices of being patriotic. The spending amendments are merely buying off anyone needed to support the bill: for $50 million dollars to your state you’ll apparently vote for anything. If you look at the Senate resolution and the amendments that are proposed you’ll see the following sponsors:

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) x 2
Sen. Kay Hutchison (R-TX)
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS)

You can read at CNN or MSNBC or Fox to get details of some of these amendments: insect research? Katrina relief? Tree saving? Milk? All a bunch of garbage that doesn’t belong in the bill. At least Sen. Cochran showed some onions – I can read the text of his amendment at the Library of Congress website prior to the vote: he wants to strike the deadline from the bill. Good for him. The other amendments are tagged as “Purpose will be available when the amendment is proposed for consideration. See Congressional Record for text.” Of course it will be…but I’ll have to dig through mountains of text to see just how much you’ve spent and just how much I despise your actions. And just so we can fully enjoy these ideals set forth by our representatives in Washington, bear in mind that each of these spending amendments ($283,000,000 for Milk Income Loss, $74,000,000 for Peanut Storage Costs, and Sen. Reid’s $20,000,000 for insect research, etc.) in the Senate resolution can be cited, under emergency designation, by using the bill’s title: U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007. Nice.

I’ll bet that Hutchinson and Sessions will fall in line with Senate Democrats on the resolution vote…you think? The Dems will play it as Republicans breaking from the party in order to show solidarity with the Iraq withdrawal deadline. But what we really know is that Sens. Sessions and Hutchinson just want to get paid. Reid, Byrd, and Landrieu look worse on the day - they are simply taking money because they can.

No more politics.

T.