OT: Congress, the Budget & Pork

[flere-imsaho]

The Senate is still working on a roughly $80 billion emergency appropriations (http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:H.R.1268:) bill, which is money requested by the President for military purposes.

On Tuesday, Senators rejected (http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-782283.php) an attempt to add $1.9 billion to the bill for funding of VA hospitals, the vast majority of which are in a funding crisis due to casualties coming back from Iraq & Afghanistan.

However, Senators have had no compunction in adding some of the following (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/politics/12spend.html?) to the bill:


Giving Mississippi certain drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico.
Money for flood-related repairs in California
Money for the new baseball stadium in D.C.
etc....



"It is just horrifying," said James Carifano, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group. "It's only a couple of million here and a couple of million there, but it takes a couple of million to buy body armor for our troops, and we didn't do it because we couldn't afford it."

I agree.


Democrats charged Republicans with using emergency supplemental bills to circumvent the budget debate. "The White House has turned on its head the definition of an emergency supplemental appropriation," Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, said. "This is not truth in budgeting. Tactics like this hide the real costs of the war."

I also agree.

[st.cronin]

Federal money went to the baseball stadium in DC?

[flere-imsaho]

Federal money went to the baseball stadium in DC?

The way I understand it, the amendment allows D.C. to use part of its money for the stadium. Since D.C. gets its money from the federal government....

[Franklinnoble]

Right. Because Democrats NEVER do this. Only Republicans.

:rolleyes:

[JPhillips]

Franklin: Of course Dems lard the budget with pork, but according to things I've read it really has gotten worse under this congress. The use of "emergency" appropriations is unprecedented. Much of the real military spending in this bill could have been budgeted in the real budget, but that would have incresed the debt projections and shown the real cost of the war on terror. There has also been a several fold increase in appropriations put in during conference deliberations.

There is a lot of spending that I bet we could agree is wasteful, but if you insist on using the old "Dems are just as bad" you're giving a free pass to those in power.

[st.cronin]

Much of the real military spending in this bill could have been budgeted in the real budget, but that would have incresed the debt projections and shown the real cost of the war on terror.

Whenever I hear this phrase it makes me think the person saying it is implying that the war on terror is not worth fighting.

[QuikSand]

And then we all go and vote to re-elect all these same guys again and again.

[Desnudo]

It wouldn't matter who gets elected. Too much money in too few hands.

[Franklinnoble]

Franklin: Of course Dems lard the budget with pork, but according to things I've read it really has gotten worse under this congress. The use of "emergency" appropriations is unprecedented. Much of the real military spending in this bill could have been budgeted in the real budget, but that would have incresed the debt projections and shown the real cost of the war on terror. There has also been a several fold increase in appropriations put in during conference deliberations.

There is a lot of spending that I bet we could agree is wasteful, but if you insist on using the old "Dems are just as bad" you're giving a free pass to those in power.
No, I'm not giving a free pass. But the initial post was certainly partisan, and I'm just making a point - we've had just as much pork from democratic governments - look at the state of California if you need a present-day example.

I think crap like federal money for baseball stadiums should put people in jail. But I'm also a cynic - this shit just goes on all the damned time, and the people in power are rarely held accountable for it, because, frankly, there's no one higher up to do it.

[JPhillips]

st. cronin: No, I don't think it isn't worth fighting. But I do believe we should be honest about what is being spent and how it is being spent. I don't believe that the President and Congress will always make wise decisions, in fact the gross amount of pork that they hide in these bills proves that.

Above all I want a government that is open and accountable.

[Klinglerware]

Whenever I hear this phrase it makes me think the person saying it is implying that the war on terror is not worth fighting.

Nope, the implication is that the administration wants us to believe that the war on terror can be fought without fiscal sacrifice (and having to roll back the tax cuts)...

Few people doubt the necessity of fighting the war against al-Qaeda, so why does the administration feel the need to have to obscure the price tag?

[Abe Sargent]

The West Virginia State Constitution has a rule that each Bill can only be about one subject - period. No riders, no attachments, and so forth. If your bill is about handicapped hunting licenses, then only amendments about hanicapped hunting licenses can be added, and so forth. I'd support a national amendment that did the same.

-Anxiety

[judicial clerk]

The West Virginia State Constitution has a rule that each Bill can only be about one subject - period. No riders, no attachments, and so forth. If your bill is about handicapped hunting licenses, then only amendments about hanicapped hunting licenses can be added, and so forth. I'd support a national amendment that did the same.

I like this idea. I think Washington State has the same requirement somewhere in its law.

[QuikSand]

The West Virginia State Constitution has a rule that each Bill can only be about one subject - period. No riders, no attachments, and so forth. If your bill is about handicapped hunting licenses, then only amendments about hanicapped hunting licenses can be added, and so forth. I'd support a national amendment that did the same.

-Anxiety

Most states have either a law like this (as Maryland does), or else a line-item veto for their Governors, which (at least in theory) allows tag-along items to be pruned from important legislation.

However... the politics of "no, we won't build this library addition," and "no, we won't spend money for your museum" just doesn't tend to win over voters very well. And the wide-eyed politicians who make it to elected office and say that they don't want any part of the pork barrel process pretty quickly find one of two things: (1) nobody writes you thank you letters when you stand in the way of popular local project spending, and (2) your re-election campaign brochures sure do look nice when it's you helping to cut the ribbon on some new thing that people... er, voters... seem to like.


There's some game theory to all this, I'm sure -- it's sort of a prisoner's dilemma situation, but instead of haggling over their own jail terms, they're haggling over whether to spend your money.