SENATORS LARD UP WAR BILL

It’s bad enough that the Pentagon has crammed an $80 bil­lion bill, sup­pos­edly meant to cover last-​​minute con­ti­gen­cies in Afghanistan and Iraq, with all kinds of mil­i­tary pork.
Now, “sen­a­tors [have] seized a chance to pack pet projects into an unstop­pable bill, adding pro­vi­sions deal­ing with oil drilling, for­est ser­vices, a new base­ball sta­dium for Washington and eco­nomic assis­tance to Palestinians,” the Times reports.

Senator Thad Cochran, the Mississippi Republican who is chair­man of the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the draft “a straight­for­ward bill” that “meets the needs of our fight­ing forces over­seas” and “addresses emer­gency require­ments here at home.“
His own addi­tion to the spend­ing bill was a mea­sure giv­ing Mississippi con­trol of the min­eral rights and the abil­ity to per­mit cer­tain drilling below the Gulf Islands National Seashore in the Gulf of Mexico. Some envi­ron­men­tal groups have opposed the mea­sure.
In a state­ment, Mr. Cochran said that the pro­vi­sion “removes the cloud of con­fu­sion over who owns the min­eral rights to the Mississippi bar­rier islands” while “allow­ing the National Park Service to con­tinue its good work in pre­serv­ing the nat­ural and his­toric fea­tures of the Gulf Island National Seashore.“
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.” 

April 12th, 2005 | Money Money Money | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.