Author Topic: Draining the swamp?  (Read 8541 times)

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BT

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Draining the swamp?
« on: March 20, 2007, 02:08:37 PM »
War Bill Includes Tempting Projects
Democrats' Tactic Poses Dilemma for Some Lawmakers

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; A01



House Democratic leaders are offering billions in federal funds for lawmakers' pet projects large and small to secure enough votes this week to pass an Iraq funding bill that would end the war next year.

So far, the projects -- which range from the reconstruction of New Orleans levees to the building of peanut storehouses in Georgia -- have had little impact on the tally. For a funding bill that establishes tough new readiness standards for deploying combat forces and sets an Aug. 31, 2008, deadline to bring the troops home, votes do not come cheap.

But at least a few Republicans and conservative Democrats who otherwise would vote "no" remain undecided, as they ponder whether they can leave on the table millions of dollars for constituents by opposing the $124 billion war funding bill due for a vote on Thursday.

"She hates the games the Democrats are playing," said Guy Short, chief of staff to Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), a staunch conservative who remains undecided, thanks to billions of dollars in the bill for drought relief and agriculture assistance. "But Representative Musgrave was just down in southeastern Colorado, talking to ranchers and farmers, and they desperately need this assistance."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031901615_pf.html

Democratic leaders say the domestic spending in the bill reflects the pent-up demand from lawmakers who last year could not win funding for programs that had bipartisan support such as disaster assistance.

But in a formal veto statement last night, the White House denounced what it called "excessive and extraneous non-emergency spending." With unusually caustic and combative language, the statement dismissed provisions of the bill as "unconscionable," and said it "would place freedom and democracy in Iraq at grave risk" and "embolden our enemies."

As the opposition heats up, the Democrats have had some successes in their furious search for support. Yesterday, MoveOn.org announced that with 85 percent of its members backing the bill, the liberal activist group will begin working for its passage. That could prove to be a major boost for Democratic leaders struggling to keep in line the most liberal wing of the party, which wants to cut off funds for the war by the end of this year.

A few Republicans are at least considering a vote for the bill, including Reps. Wayne T. Gilchrest and Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland. Some conservative Democrats who had been expected to vote no on Thursday are wavering.

To get them off the fence and on the bill, Democrats have a key weapon at their disposal: cold, hard cash. The bill contains billions for agriculture and drought relief, children's health care and Gulf Coast hurricane recovery.

For Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), there is $25 million for spinach growers hurt by last year's E. coli scare. For three conservative Democrats in Georgia, there is $75 million for peanut storage. For lawmakers from the bone-dry West, there is $500 million for wildfire suppression. An additional $120 million is earmarked for shrimp and Atlantic menhaden fishermen.

So far, at least in public pronouncements, the $21 billion in funding beyond President Bush's request has earned Democrats nothing but scorn.

For more than a year, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R) has tried unsuccessfully to secure federal funds to prevent salt water from intruding on rice fields in his lowland Louisiana district. So it came as a surprise last week when Boustany found $15 million in the House's huge war spending bill for his rice farmers. He hadn't even asked that the bill include it.

"It gives me no satisfaction to vote against measures that I have been working for since even before [Hurricane] Katrina, but I cannot in good conscience vote for a bill that does this to our troops," Boustany said yesterday, decrying what he called the "cheap politics" of using disaster aid to win votes on a measure this controversial.

House GOP leaders have accused Democratic leaders of flagrant vote-buying.

"The war supplemental legislation voted out of the Appropriations Committee last week was an exercise in arrogance that demonstrated the utter contempt the majority has for the American people and their hard-earned tax dollars," fumed Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.). "We are at war with a ruthless global terrorist network, yet the appropriators allocated hundreds of millions in funds to gratuitous pork projects."

Even some Democrats say the issue of Iraq has become far too heated to be conducive to vote-buying.

"The profile and urgency of this Iraq vote really doesn't lend itself to these kinds of side deals," said Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), who has pushed drought relief for more than a year.

But the success of adding the spending measures will not really be known until the votes are tallied. Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-La.), who is running for his state's governorship, has conspicuously refused to say whether he can vote against $2.9 billion for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery, including $1.3 billion for New Orleans levee repairs.

Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), usually a reliable vote for the Republican leadership, is undecided as he ponders how he can vote against drought relief he has worked for months to secure. The same goes for Musgrave, whose district has been devastated by drought.

Democrats who may well have turned solidly against the bill are still weighing their options. Last year, Rep. John Barrow (Ga.) circulated a petition trying to get Republican House leaders to schedule a vote on drought relief. This year, Barrow's advocacy has yielded $3.7 billion worth of agricultural disaster assistance in the war spending bill, which he bragged about last week in a statement to constituents. The conservative Democrat, who narrowly escaped defeat in November, is now undecided on the Iraq bill.

For the undecided, these days running up to the vote will be difficult. The vote has become a high-stakes showdown between a Democratic leadership that has staked considerable political capital on the bill and a Republican leadership demanding that its members stay united in opposition.

But votes against home-state interests will not go unnoticed. When Appropriations Committee member Rodney Alexander (R-La.) voted against the bill in committee last week, Democratic Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.) shot off a statement to the New Orleans Times-Picayune declaring, "When [Gulf Coast] assistance is on the fast track, Rep. Alexander chose to stand with his party rather than with the people of his region."

North Dakota's Republican lieutenant governor, Jack Dalrymple, was in Washington last week, lobbying for agriculture disaster assistance. "What it's about is the impact on the economy of an entire region," he told the Associated Press. "When you come down to the human level, there is no question that there are farmers meeting with their bankers right now, and whether or not they can farm this year is dependent on whether this program is approved."


_JS

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2007, 02:53:10 PM »
Wow.

Pelosi is quite the tactician. I'm guessing a lot of these guys on both sides of the aisle weren't expecting to play hardball this early.

Quote
Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-La.), who is running for his state's governorship, has conspicuously refused to say whether he can vote against $2.9 billion for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery, including $1.3 billion for New Orleans levee repairs.

Quote
Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), usually a reliable vote for the Republican leadership, is undecided as he ponders how he can vote against drought relief he has worked for months to secure. The same goes for Musgrave, whose district has been devastated by drought.

Quote
Last year, Rep. John Barrow (Ga.) circulated a petition trying to get Republican House leaders to schedule a vote on drought relief. This year, Barrow's advocacy has yielded $3.7 billion worth of agricultural disaster assistance in the war spending bill, which he bragged about last week in a statement to constituents. The conservative Democrat, who narrowly escaped defeat in November, is now undecided on the Iraq bill.

Quote
When Appropriations Committee member Rodney Alexander (R-La.) voted against the bill in committee last week, Democratic Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.) shot off a statement to the New Orleans Times-Picayune declaring, "When [Gulf Coast] assistance is on the fast track, Rep. Alexander chose to stand with his party rather than with the people of his region."

Making a domestic issue out of a foreign policy issue? That's bold. If anyone thought they were going to walk all over Pelosi's people, I'm guessing they're changing their minds now.
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
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   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
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sirs

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2007, 03:09:48 PM »
Pretty grotesque, for any politican.  Then again, this isn't new, trying to literally buy both politicians and their constituents.  And if Bush vetos the bill, he can be bashed for both not supporting the troops and not supporting some local rebuilding project.  When of of course, if legislators were to actually ethically legislate, Bush could deal with bills specific to the war and bills specific to other pet projects, completely unrelated to the war.  But NOooooooo, Dems can't raise to that level of morality and ethics.  They need to be just as disengenuous as they've always been.  DC operating in SOP

Draining the swamp?....yea right
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BT

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2007, 07:41:04 PM »
Quote
Making a domestic issue out of a foreign policy issue? That's bold. If anyone thought they were going to walk all over Pelosi's people, I'm guessing they're changing their minds now.

Looks to me like they can't end the war on the sole merits of ending the war. And it's a nice touch watching here hold suffering people hostage because the dems can't sell instant withdrawal.

But if you must leverage pain might as well do it now, i doubt the voters will remember it in '08.
 

BT

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2007, 09:21:47 PM »
I had a meeting with some folks at Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) for our waterline project and one of the things that came out of it was that this congress was slow on releasing the funds for our area because they were busy with investigations and "redeployment" issues.

We should have had the contracts at the end of January  and we still haven't seen them.

The_Professor

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2007, 10:28:16 PM »
And the Democrats came into office talking a lot about accountability and responsibility and so on and what do we get? The same crud --spend, spend, and more spend. Irresponsible. This jockeying for votes utilizing bribery is dishonest and disgusting, regardless of the Party.

_JS

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #6 on: March 21, 2007, 10:18:38 AM »
This is politics.

Y'all act like this is something new.

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Amianthus

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #7 on: March 21, 2007, 10:46:35 AM »
This is politics.

Y'all act like this is something new.

Seems like the comments a few years ago were that it was new because of Bush being elected. Apparently never happened before.

Lots of derision towards the "Clinton did it, too" defense.

Besides, we were told that when the Democrats were elected, "the adults were in power now" and they wouldn't put up with the same politics as before.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

_JS

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #8 on: March 21, 2007, 11:20:33 AM »
I'm no expert, but I do have to work with politics.

All I am saying is that I see a lot of this (well not this exactly, but similar) from borh sides of the aisle and from non-politicians as well.

Politics is a game, and you can sit around the periphery and play semantics or play the indignant holier-than-thou spectator if you like, but in the back of everyone's mind they know that no matter how much polished marble and oak an assembly has, it is a dirty, muddy game.

As far as the game goes, this was an impressive move by the Democrats. In an ideal Republic that exists only in abstract, no one would want this. But, how many Republicans and commentators have been goading the Democrats and saying that they wouldn't really do anything on Iraq?

Guess they were wrong.
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Amianthus

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2007, 11:52:19 AM »
As far as the game goes, this was an impressive move by the Democrats. In an ideal Republic that exists only in abstract, no one would want this. But, how many Republicans and commentators have been goading the Democrats and saying that they wouldn't really do anything on Iraq?

Guess they were wrong.

And now they'll be criticized for pork-barrel projects - another thing they were supposed to stop.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Plane

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #10 on: March 21, 2007, 12:46:43 PM »
There willnever be a federal line item veto.

BT

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #11 on: March 21, 2007, 01:13:09 PM »

Quote
As far as the game goes, this was an impressive move by the Democrats.

Yeah, pushing political agendas on the backs of the poor is always impressive.

As Brass is prone to say, perception is reality.


« Last Edit: March 21, 2007, 01:16:49 PM by BT »

sirs

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #12 on: March 21, 2007, 01:35:17 PM »
I'm intrigued at how "smart" Js has proclaimed Pelosi for being, when the GOP would be villified (rightly so) for doing the same thing, like attaching education spending to some emergency military supplimental, that would extend spending for the Iraq war.        :-\
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

_JS

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #13 on: March 21, 2007, 02:09:16 PM »
Quote
Yeah, pushing political agendas on the backs of the poor is always impressive.

And will always be done in American politics. Welcome to capitalism.

Quote
perception is reality

Very much so.

Typically there aren't many quotes from modern movies that stick with me, but the movie Gladiator had one. One Senator told another that "Rome is the Mob." Really, that was only somewhat true at the time. "America is the mob" is far more appropriate or perhaps "America is the fickle mob."

It is a great thing when it is the mob in favor of one's agenda and you are manipulating it to your liking. For President Bush that was working well just after 9/11 and for a few years afterwards. Since a period in 2005 and to the present the mob has turned and when the mob turns it ain't a pretty site for the side that was previously using its abilities to manipulate it (and note I use the term "manipulate" in a neutral sense).

For the mob, perception is reality - at least in the present. Hey, it is a double-edged sword. It works for you and against you.

Quote
I'm intrigued at how "smart" Js has proclaimed Pelosi for being, when the GOP would be villified (rightly so) for doing the same thing, like attaching education spending to some emergency military supplimental, that would extend spending for the Iraq war.

Oh, Pelosi will be villified for it as well. Just look in this thread for some of the early possibilities. Ami has used the pork-barrel projects and Bt has used the agenda-on-the-backs-of-the-poor. And if the Democrats had not done this, they would have been called to the mat for using the Iraq War as a political move, but then not doing anything about it.

Villification is easy. You think any of this is new? The Romans ran nasty campaigns against one another way back in antiquity.

Don't mistake my view of this event as my ideal. I don't even want to see the troops pulled out prematurely.

I just find these naive childlike views of democracy fascinating. You all know how the game is played. There are Republicans working on a counter-strategy right now I'm sure. They know how to play the game too. It is all about manipulating the mob and if this is stunning, wait for the 2008 campaigns to see the real walk through the fecal matter begin.
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

BT

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Re: Draining the swamp?
« Reply #14 on: March 21, 2007, 02:14:20 PM »
Quote
and Bt has used the agenda-on-the-backs-of-the-poor.

Damn right i did. Because that is exactly what it is. Excuse or minimize it all you want, but this particular tactic sucks.