The Sausage Factory

There seems to be a lot of legislation being spitballed in Congress right now, let's do a rundown:

• The House voted to ban all permanent bases in Iraq. There's enough funding, of course, to already build these installations, but it's somewhat significant to the next Administration coming in that the House is on record for this, and that talk of Iraq being the new Korea is being fully rejected. Hopefully the Senate will join them.

• After a farm bill that retained multibillion dollar subsidies to farmers, but lowered the ceiling for payment eligibility and also tried to tighten offshore tax haven loopholes, suddenly faces a veto threat from the President and Republicans who don't want anything bad to happen to those persecuted rich people.

Democrats said the tax proposal would merely close a loophole that the Bush administration itself has decried in the past. "Who is surprised that the administration takes the side of CEOs who hold beachside board meetings at the expense of programs to feed the least fortunate here at home?" asked Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee [...]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has defended the legislation as an important step toward reform. In addition to paying for traditional farm programs, the bill would provide billions of dollars over the next decade for conservation, biofuel research and nutrition programs such as food stamps. There is new money for organic farmers, rural development and fruit-and-vegetable snacks for schoolchildren.

The farm bill is one of those pieces of Congressional sausage that doesn't get a lot of attention, but really sets the priorities for who we are as a society. The Republicans have set theirs, certainly. But this is always a compromise bill where the interests of farm-state lawmakers are foregrounded and a lot of pork is maintained. Democrats probably did the best they could do on this one, and still Republicans can't allow rich people to have to pay their taxes.

• After the report from a Presidential panel on veteran's care, reforms to the system are being recommended. Maybe we won't see the kind of shocking situation that leads Iraq veterans to sue the VA. What's so depressing is that this plan is cheap:

The commission said fully carrying out its recommendations would cost $500 million a year for the time being, and $1 billion annually years from now as the current crop of fresh veterans and active military members ages and new personnel is in place.

Many of the recommendations of the commission were included in a bill that passed the Senate yesterday.

• Looks like the homeland security bill is finally moving forward.

House and Senate negotiators reached accord yesterday on legislation to implement most of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that studied the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The deal could be enacted as early as this week. Agreement on a package of lobbying and ethics rules changes should be done by early next week. And congressional leaders hope to pass a significant expansion of the 10-year-old program to provide health insurance for children of the working poor.

They're finally starting to break the deadlocks on some of this stuff, as Republicans may have understood that low disapproval ratings for Congress means EVERY incumbent is threatened, not just Democrats. And with far more Republicans up in the Senate, I'm sure they are getting nervous. And the Democrats are starting to put moderates in a vice in a smart way. To wit:

But against such philosophical stands, there is a stark political problem: How many Republicans are really going to oppose legislation expanding insurance coverage for children, tightening ethics rules and bolstering homeland security?

"They've had a pretty strong quarter," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), who praised the insurance bill as "creative" and suggested the homeland security bill would pass overwhelmingly. "The first quarter was not so good, and that's why they're not looking so good in the polls, but this quarter is looking very good for them. They can send their members home crowing about their accomplishments, and they've done it in a bipartisan way, which is exactly what they promised to do," LaHood said.

I don't know if people are paying enough attention; really only Iraq matters in the big picture. But Democrats are starting to expose the obstructionists and break through the media filter.