I’m going to quote from a Friday editorial in the San Diego Tribune in reference to all the pork that was added to the supplemental military spending bill that was passed in the House today.

I don’t know if this newspaper is conservative or liberal, but being based in San Diego tells me it is most probably conservative.

Democrats wasted no time after their takeover of Congress in November in declaring a new era of responsible government. Party leaders said earmarks and massive, blithe pork-barrel spending would be a thing of the past. “We promise the most honest, most open, most ethical Congress in history,” declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Initially, Democrats seemed to live up to their grand talk. To the amazement of many, incoming Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd – the West Virginia Democrat who may be the biggest pork abuser of all – joined with incoming House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey to vow there would be no new earmarks until the next fiscal year began on Oct. 1.

This was all wonderful, welcome and overdue. Federal spending has been out of control since the final years of the Clinton administration. While earmarks and pork are only a relatively small part of the reason why, controlling them would be a welcome sign of a newly sober, adult attitude on Congress’ part.

Too bad it was all a charade.

…

Weeks ago, Pelosi proposed attaching a requirement that U.S. troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 to an emergency $100 billion military appropriations bill. When it became apparent she didn’t have enough votes, she responded by adding $24 billion in pork, often in the form of agricultural subsidies used to win over rural Democratic lawmakers who tend to be more deferential on war policy.

This is disgusting. That Pelosi insists this extra spending doesn’t qualify as pork is bad enough. But the idea that taxpayer funds are being doled out by the multibillion for unrelated domestic programs to influence a profoundly important vote on Iraq should offend everyone. What does it say for the dozens of House members that this tactic apparently swayed? That on any issue, there is a price at which their convictions are for sale?

In 2004, a unanimous House ethics committee voted to rebuke then-Majority Leader DeLay for his tactics in attempting to persuade Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., to support a 2003 bill adding prescription-drug benefits to Medicare. DeLay’s offense, according to the official panel report: “DeLay offered to endorse Rep. Smith’s son [to replace him after he retired] in exchange for Rep. Smith’s vote in favor of the Medicare bill.”

If that merits a formal rebuke, trying to use $24 billion in taxpayer money to sway a vote on war policy deserves a prison term.

I’ve quoted most of the editorial but urge you to follow the above link and read all of it.

We all pay for the pork contained in this bill to help in peanut storage, help spinach farmers and various other agricultural causes for huge farms owned by large companies.

This bill should have stood or fallen on its own. I doubt the Senate can pass it with the different rules in it, but if it is passed I hope the pork is stripped from the bill before it goes to conference for reconciliation.

The president has promised a veto on this bill and let’s be clear why. He’s promised a veto because it sets a date certain for us to pull out of Iraq and because it contains so much pork, which is really a different name for bribes for a congressman’s vote.

Congress has the power of the purse, namely the House of Representatives, and if it was the intent to defund the war so our troops would have to return home then that’s the way the bill should have been written, or not written. No supplemental should have been considered as we all know the real reason was to stop the war in Iraq.

The House should have stood on their principles and let the chips fall where they may and never mind every special interest in the country.

That’s why we need term limits and citizen-legislators. Hold congressional sessions for a couple of months a year, conduct the nation’s business and go back home to their real jobs. Oops, once they’re in Congress that is their real job.

Written by ~J~

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