Congress Hijacks Troop Funding for Pork

[GaryC 7]

As federal spending nears $24,000 per household, the House of Representatives took the President's vital national security supplemental bill and larded it up with $21 billion in unrelated spending.[1] This blatant abuse of the emergency spending budget tool is a strong signal that the new congressional leadership's pledge of fiscal restraint will be short-lived. This legislation holds U.S. troops hostage to a host of special interest spending. With an average cost of $721 million per each of its 172 pages, this bill could be the most expensive emergency legislation in American history. Moreover, Congress is using this vital troop spending bill as a vehicle to debate war strategy. Instead of getting bogged down in that debate, Congress need to focus on getting needed funds to the troops on the front lines.

It was barely a month ago that Congress passed a budget limiting fiscal year 2007 discretionary spending (excluding emergencies) to the President's cap of $873 billion. This represented an increase of only 3.5 percent over last year's budget. The new leadership's repeated pledges that it would exercise spending restraint to curb the budget deficit and enact serious pay-as-you-go budget rules to enforce discipline have already been broken by this new spending bill. Declaring an additional $21 billion for unrelated measures as "emergency" spending allows Congress exclude it from the budget caps. This accounting gimmick may hide the spending from budget documents, but taxpayers will still be on the hook for it on April 15.

The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, for whose benefit this legislation was intended, have become merely a bargaining chip for an additional $21 billion in spending that could never pass on its own. Lawmakers are effectively telling President Bush that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot have their body armor unless Congress gets $16 million for additional office space for the House of Representatives. Is it any wonder that polls show 80 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress's performance on federal spending?

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm1397.cfm

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Basically, Dems' call for fiscal restraint sounded too much like Myron Baloney's sales pitch that Gouge-and-Shaft Tax would reduce Canada's deficit--only difference would be that the steps to IMPLEMENT the GST disproved that pitch, while the Dems' call is proven hollow AFTER they're elected.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

once again, the dems fail to surprise me.

Edited March 16, 2007 by charlesandnessa

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Keeping on the Canuck analogies...

Dems are like NDP, while Pubs are like Mulroney-Tories--meaning "don't look for either of these to do fiscal restraint".

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Business as usual. Shame on the Dems.