Say Anything Blog

Am I the only one who gets the feeling that the only reason the Dems are even considering passing a war funding bill to give our troops the resources they need to complete the mission in Iraq is because such a bill is a sure-thing to pass even with all sorts of pork amendments attached to it?

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Like their counterparts in the House, the Senate has larded its version of an “emergency” war spending bill with nearly $20 billion in pork-barrel outlays, including $100 million for the two major political parties’ 2008 presidential conventions.

The $121 billion bill includes $102 billion for the troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as $14 billion for Hurricane Katrina aid and more than $4 billion for “emergency farm relief.”

“Congress will have to make the choice between booze and balloons or bullets and body armor,” John Hart, a spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., told The Examiner on Monday. Coburn and a handful of other senators hope to shame their colleagues into stripping the pork out of the war spending bill.

These folks are shameless.  Of course, Senator Robert “King of Pork” Byrd defended the extra spending:

Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., Monday defended the extra spending, describing it as “common sense and good economics.”

“Funding for the war is not the only critical need worthy of the supplemental spending,” he said. The war “must not obliterate every other concern.”

Well no, the war shouldn’t obliterate every other concern this country has.  But if these other needs Byrd talks of are as “critical” as he suggests it seems they could be brought up for a vote on their own merits and not tucked into a totally unrelated bill for passage simply because said unrelated bill is too important to delay.