Your Tax Dollars At Work

I've written about how ridiculous it is to put riders into popular spending or appropriations bills that have nothing to do with that bill in the first place. Earmark reform is fine, but there shouldn't be education items in a highway bill, or antiabortion language in a UN funding bill (a "greatest hits" GOP play from the late 90s).

Or Big Pharma protections in a defense bill, for example. Especially when practically nobody in Congress knew about it:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert engineered a backroom legislative maneuver to protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits, say witnesses to the pre-Christmas power play.

The language was tucked into a Defense Department appropriations bill at the last minute without the approval of members of a House-Senate conference committee, say several witnesses, including a top Republican staff member.

(snip)

"It is a travesty of the legislative process," said Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

"It vests enormous power in the hands of congressional leaders and private interests, minimizes transparency and denies legitimate opportunities for all interested parties, in Congress and outside, to weigh in on important policy questions."

And I don't think reducing the amount of trips paid for by lobbyists is going to change this culture of corruption, either. Only a new generation of lawmakers committed to decency will do it. It's "throw the bums out" time.