The patriotic-sounding bill is dubbed the “U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act,” but the subtitle could be, “And Don’t Forget Farmers, Shrimpers, NASA and Other Regulars at Uncle Sam’s Buffet.”
The measure, passed by the House on Friday, includes $96 billion for the Pentagon to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a rebuke to President Bush requiring him to complete the withdrawal of armed forces from Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008. But wait, there’s more – $28 billion more. Bush, in his appearance before cameras to announce he would veto the bill, complained that it “tacked on billions for pet projects that have nothing to do with winning the war on terror” and derided it as containing “too much pork, too many conditions and an artificial timetable for withdrawal.”
The final version worked out to about $742 million a page. Brian M. Riedl, a fellow on budgetary issues at the conservative Heritage Foundation, wrote recently that the bill “could be the most expensive emergency legislation in American history.”
Just what is all this stuff? You can read the details for yourself on the 87-page printout, or nosh on this Top 10:
--$165,200 to the widow of Rep. Charles Norwood (R-Ga.), a promoter of patients’ rights legislation who died of cancer and lung disease in February, three months after he was reelected.
--$4 million for the Office of Women's Health at the Food and Drug Administration.
--$5 million for tropical fish breeders and transporters for losses from a virus last year.
--$25 million for spinach that growers and handlers were unable to market, up to 75 percent of their losses.
--$50 million “for asbestos abatement and other improvements” to the Capitol Power Plant.
--$60.4 million for the National Marine Fisheries Service, “to be distributed among fishing communities, Indian tribes, individuals, small businesses, including fishermen, fish processors, and related businesses, and other persons for assistance to mitigate the economic and other social effects caused by” a commercial fishery failure.
--$74 million “for the payment of storage, handling, and other associated costs for the 2007 crop of peanuts to ensure proper storage of peanuts for which a loan is made.”
--$120 million for the shrimp and menhaden fishing industries to cover consequences of Hurricane Katrina.
--$283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract Program.
--$400 million for “wildland fire suppression.”
The hefty add-ons followed the new earmark disclosure requirements that the Democratic majority passed on Jan. 5, Nancy Pelosi’s second day as speaker. Citizens Against Government Waste, which calls itself a “taxpayer watchdog” group, says the “special-interest goodies” in the war spending bill suggest that “the commitment to reform was short-lived.”
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) contended that while some (although certainly not all) of the items have merit, they have no business in an emergency war spending bill and should be considered through the normal appropriations process. Kevin Smith, Boehner's communications director, said: "Republicans insisted on a clean war-spending bill last year, free from pork. We don't think it's asking too much from Democrats to focus on our troops first and consider the needs of spinach farmers and tropical fish later in the year."
Sarah Feinberg, communications director for the House Democratic Caucus, replied: “It’s a disingenuous argument being made by the very same members of Congress who were wholly incapable of producing legislation last year that would meet the needs of those farmers and veterans who are so desperate for assistance now. For Democrats, being in the majority sometimes means cleaning up the messes of the Republicans who came before us. If Republicans felt so strongly, one would expect them to make some attempt on the floor to take the spending out. Instead they chose to bluster.”
Next week, the Senate will take up its version of the war bill, which includes such sweeteners as $13 million for Ewe Lamb Replacement and Retention Program, $24 million for sugar beet producers and $165.9 million for fisheries disaster relief.
