NYT: New Criticism Falls on 'Supplemental' Bills

[Pirate Smile]

WASHINGTON, April 24 — Tucked inside an emergency spending bill that the Senate will take up this week are provisions far afield from the legislation's main purpose of paying for the war in Iraq and hurricane recovery. There are farm-program provisions totaling $4 billion, for instance, along with $700 million to relocate a rail line in Mississippi and $1.1 billion for fishery projects, including a $15 million "seafood promotion strategy."

While each program has supporters who can make a case for its urgency, together they have helped to increase the "supplemental" bill's price tag to $106 billion, $14 billion more than President Bush requested and nearly $15 billion more than the House has approved. And they have focused new attention on what many fiscal conservatives and watchdog groups consider a growing problem: the use of emergency spending bills for initiatives that critics say should be considered through the regular budget process.

"Emergencies are not true emergencies when you're repairing highway backlogs that go back several years, when Congress is giving large handouts to farmers despite record farm incomes and when you're relocating a rail line" whose change of course was proposed decades ago, said Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "That doesn't sound like an emergency to me."

-snip-
Critics of the Congressional spending process say lawmakers have used emergencies as a cover to push through other projects or simply to make more room for regular government spending programs. The Senate bill includes $72 billion for military and other operations related to Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are also billions more for programs as diverse as forests, highways and higher education.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/washington/25spend.html?hp&ex=1145937600&en=4303a2ebf54bf6c0&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[yourout]

1. "...$15 million "seafood promotion strategy."

oink, oink, oink, oink

[Inland]

2. That's why there's a budget process in the first place

and why our repuke congress does an end around it.

[Drum]

3. Ja, everything this administration (and cronies) wants

goes through hyped as some emergency or crisis. Y don't the better people of this country make congress shut down for awhile until our reps and senators return to their senses? Starve the Bushies on the vine.

[stillcool]

4. ...this song keeps running through my head...

The time has come to say fair's fair
To pay the rent, now to pay our share
The time has come, a fact's a fact
It belongs to them, let's give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. Cleanth Brooks would be shocked!

Sorry. Literary theory nerd joke...