Thursday, March 29, 2007
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President Bush Goes After Pork in War Supplemental
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Posted by:
John Campbell at
1:31 PM
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Yesterday, the President strongly spoke out against the pork and special handouts thrown in the supplemental bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here's some of what he had to say: "...the House bill would add billions of dollars in domestic spending that is completely unrelated to the war. For example, the bill includes $74 million for peanut storage, $25 million for spinach growers...This week the Senate is considering a version that is no better...There's $3.5 million for visitors to tour the Capitol and see for themselves how Congress works. (Laughter.) I'm not kidding you." "There's $6.4 million for the House of Representatives' salaries and expense accounts. I don't know what that is, but it is not related to the war and protecting the United States of America." "Here's the bottom line: The House and Senate bills have too much pork, too many conditions on our commanders, and an artificial timetable for withdrawal. (Applause.) And I have made it clear for weeks, if either version comes to my desk, I'm going to veto it." To read a good article on the speech, click here.
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1) When Bush had a favorable Congress he gave them a sweetheart deal: he got everything he wanted from them in exchange for them getting everything they wanted from him. No pork was too porkish. He vetoed nothing. Examples then were just as ridiculous as now. Why should he allow pork now when it's not buying him anything?
2) Not only pork but political threats and favors were used to get the Medicare drug bill passed. Arms were twisted. Vote was held open for many hours longer than it was supposed to be. One Congressman was told that if he did not vote in favor of the bill his son's current political campaign would be trashed.
With this history, you folks can't now be talking about pork as if the Democrats invented it. You used to say of your porkishness and DeLayishness, "Oh, it's just politics and we're better at it than you are. Try winning an election." I used to see these very sentences all over the boards.
What goes around comes around. A knife cuts both ways. Tit for tat. Equal opportunity, etc.. |
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Any realist is aware of the fact that much of the pork in this bill was put there to facilitate getting votes for the deadline.
I have a very hard time being convinced that President Bush is concerned about the pork in this bill, given his record of spending over the last six years. |
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I'm glad to see he is finally standing up to the Dems. I just wish he would've done that a few years ago. I also wish the rest of the republicans start fighting back. We're getting tired of those in office simply saying nothing when MSM and libs attack. |
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“This is a bill that has all these command and control problems and $21.3 billion of non-Afghanistan, Iraq spending” including $50 million for a Capitol Hill power plant and $25 million for spinach farmers, (Rep. Roy) Blunt said.
To put this in better context, Blunt slipped special interest language for tobacco giant Altria into the Homeland Security funding bill just preceding Iraq’s invasion. On 11/13/02, the day Blunt was named House majority whip, only hours before House members voted on the bill creating the Department of Homeland Security, Blunt inserted language favoring Altria into the draft bill. It would have made it harder to sell tobacco products over the Internet and would have cracked down on the sale of contraband cigarettes. After its presence was revealed, the corporate welfare was removed.
Altria executives made mammoth donations to Blunt between 10/18 and 10/28/02. Blunt’s leadership PAC received 37 contributions totaling $30,900 from employees of Altria and its Philip Morris, Kraft Foods, and Miller Brewing units. Thirty-one contributions were received on 10/25/02, including the then-maximum $1,000 each from Altria lobbyists Lindsay Hooper, Walter Steward and Franklin Polk. Within a year the Blunt divorced his wife, and married a young Altria lobbyist. As of 2005, Blunt’s political committees had received $270,000 from Altria.
Also in 2003, Blunt helped his UPS lobbyist son Andrew, by inserting a provision into the $79 billion emergency appropriation for the war in Iraq to benefit U.S. shippers such as United Parcel Service, Inc. and FedEx Corp. The provision required that military cargo be carried only by companies with no more than 25% foreign ownership. UPS and FedEx sought to block the expansion of a foreign-owned rival’s U.S. operations. UPS and FedEx contributed at least $58,000 to Rep. Blunt between 2001 and 2005.
http://www.realitybasednation.com/blog-archives/2005/09/25-week/
Rep. Blunt delivered for convicted briber Jack Abramoff, too. In May 2003, Abramoff lobbyist Todd Boulanger drafted a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton warning that “we hold you accountable” to prevent “reservation shopping” by the Jena Choctaw Tribe of Louisiana. The Louisiana Coushatta tribe, an Abramoff client, was fighting the Interior Department’s recognition of the Jena because they would provide competition for the Coushattas’ casinos.
A version of Boulanger’s letter signed by Blunt and now-indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was delivered to Norton that June. Blunt signed two other letters to Norton opposing the Jena Choctaw’s efforts to open a casino. http://www.cleanupwashington.org/hos/page.cfm?pageid=61
Last week, Norton’s chief deputy pleaded guilty to felonies for repeatedly lying to Congress about his relationship with Abramoff.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-03-23-interior-abramoff_N.htm
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