The American Mind

Slogging through the 2007 Emergency Supplemental put together by House Democrats you wonder what the purpose of the document really is. If you thought it was to fund continuing military operations in Iraq you’re partly right. You’d also be right if you thought it was to pay off constituencies at taxpayers’ expense. “Buying their way to defeat” sums up the Democrats’ efforts here. I did some of the dirty work in pointing out the most egregious abuses of the public’s purse:

• $25,000,000 “to provide additional compensation to livestock producers” in hurricane-ravaged areas.
• $100,000,000 “to provide additional compensation to citrus producers” in hurricane-ravaged areas.
• $650,000,000 million for flood control in the New Orleans area.
• $20,000,000 for the “cleanup and restoration of farmland damaged by freezing temperatures.”
• $74,000,000 to “ensure proper storage of peanuts.”
• $60,400,000 to compensate “fishing communities, Indian tribes, individuals, small businesses, including fishermen, fish processors and related businesses” to “mitigate the economic and other social effects caused by the commercial fishery failure.”
• Sop to the teachers’ unions: $30,000,000 for “recruiting and compensating” teachers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama including “paying salary premiums, performance bonuses, housing subsidies, and relocation costs.” This section also includes the “design, adaptation, and implementation of high-quality formative assessments” and “the establishment of partnerships with nonprofit entities with a demonstrated track record in recruiting and retaining outstanding teachers and other school leaders.”
• $100,000,000 for “wildfire suppression activities.”
• $7.4 million for avian flu monitoring that includes wild bird surveillance.
• $200,000,000 for low-income home energy assistance.
• $165,200 to Gloria Norwood widow of Rep. Charles Norwood.
• $50,000,000 to get asbestos out of the Capitol power plant.

One can argue whether the federal government should be funding any of this. What’s for sure is the place for that debate is not in a war-funding bill. As it stands compensating citrus producers and fishermen and paying for peanut storage won’t help the troops beat back the Islamist hordes in Baghdad. The Mahdi Army surely must be shaking with fear knowing $165,000 will go to a Congressman’s widow and $50,000,000 will be spent on asbestos abatement.

This is what happens when you trust an Appropriations Chairman to end a war. Rep. David Obey only knows how to spend tax dollars. We have just seen his talent. When he called anti-war activists “idiot liberals” he should have extended it to himself and his spendthrift party. A clean bill needs to be written and sent to President Bush. If the Senate fails to fix much of this Bush has to veto it.

[Thanks goes to The Victory Caucus for putting the bill online for all the world to mock and rant at.]

UPDATE: James Joyner reminds me that pork-laden bills are bipartisan. There are no “Bridges to Nowhere,” a Republican shame, in the bill thankfully. He writes,

It does demonstrate, however, that promises to come to Washington and impose spending restraint are almost always laughably hollow. We’re barely two months into the new Democratic Congress and already any pretense is over.