Friday, March 23, 2007

WaPo blasts House Pork/Iraq bill

Surprising editorial with reasoned assessment in the Washington Post today.

Clearly the new majority in the House is losing domestical allies "left and more left"... i.e. their fringe anti-war element, and their left leaning media darlings. Their lack of a realistic Iraqi plan, combined with incohesive members is proving that their leadership isn't all they promised it would be during the campaign. Gee... surprise, surprise.

Retreat and Butter
Are Democrats in the House voting for farm subsidies or withdrawal from Iraq?


Friday, March 23, 2007; A16



TODAY THE House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill that would grant $25 million to spinach farmers in California. The legislation would also appropriate $75 million for peanut storage in Georgia and $15 million to protect Louisiana rice fields from saltwater. More substantially, there is $120 million for shrimp and menhaden fishermen, $250 million for milk subsidies, $500 million for wildfire suppression and $1.3 billion to build levees in New Orleans.

Altogether the House Democratic leadership has come up with more than $20 billion in new spending, much of it wasteful subsidies to agriculture or pork barrel projects aimed at individual members of Congress. At the tail of all of this logrolling and political bribery lies this stinger: Representatives who support the bill -- for whatever reason -- will be voting to require that all U.S. combat troops leave Iraq by August 2008, regardless of what happens during the next 17 months or whether U.S. commanders believe a pullout at that moment protects or endangers U.S. national security, not to mention the thousands of American trainers and Special Forces troops who would remain behind.

continue reading at link above

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