This Is Wrong

Politicians are politicians, after all, and it's been drummed into their heads that pork for their districts will help them get re-elected (I'm not even sure that's true anymore, as plenty of pork-barrelers went down last cycle). But the Democratic Congress is severely risking their credibility with me on this one.

House Democratic leaders are offering billions in federal funds for lawmakers' pet projects large and small to secure enough votes this week to pass an Iraq funding bill that would end the war next year.

So far, the projects -- which range from the reconstruction of New Orleans levees to the building of peanut storehouses in Georgia -- have had little impact on the tally. For a funding bill that establishes tough new readiness standards for deploying combat forces and sets an Aug. 31, 2008, deadline to bring the troops home, votes do not come cheap [...]

Democratic leaders say the domestic spending in the bill reflects the pent-up demand from lawmakers who last year could not win funding for programs that had bipartisan support such as disaster assistance.

But in a formal veto statement last night, the White House denounced what it called "excessive and extraneous non-emergency spending." With unusually caustic and combative language, the statement dismissed provisions of the bill as "unconscionable," and said it "would place freedom and democracy in Iraq at grave risk" and "embolden our enemies."

You've now given the White House a talking point that resonates. This headline might as well have come from a Tom DeLay-led House of Representatives.

Not all pork-barrel spending is evil, but I strongly object to vote-buying by placing unrelated issues into must-pass bills to curry political favor. That's flat-out wrong. I wish somebody would propose a "No Unrelated Riders Act," but it'll never happen, because as you can see, both Democrats and Republicans need the tool to get their agenda through. If a bill can't pass on its own merits, it isn't worth passing. This is a time to legislate and not think up political ads, particularly with respect to the disaster of the Iraq War. I'm sure we'll see ads saying that Rep. Charles Boustany "voted to take funds from Katrina victims" and it will be wrong to characterize him out of context.

"It gives me no satisfaction to vote against measures that I have been working for since even before [Hurricane] Katrina, but I cannot in good conscience vote for a bill that does this to our troops," Boustany said yesterday, decrying what he called the "cheap politics" of using disaster aid to win votes on a measure this controversial.

Some Democrats are taking principled stands about this and I applaud them.

Even some Democrats say the issue of Iraq has become far too heated to be conducive to vote-buying.

"The profile and urgency of this Iraq vote really doesn't lend itself to these kinds of side deals," said Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), who has pushed drought relief for more than a year.

This Iraq bill is not a good bill as it is, not strong enough to enforce an end to our involvement in Iraq and begin a fully funded withdrawal. With all these pork products added on top, it's almost unconscionable. Plus, it's bad politics. A clean bill that gives members a Congress to be on the side of the Bush Administration or the American people would be far more effective. These silly games shouldn't be played.