Bush: Pass a clean Iraq bill that doesn't use troop funding as leverage for spending in districts

[bigtree]

Bush in speech today marking four years of his occupation of Iraq: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070319.html

"Members of Congress are now considering an emergency war spending bill. They have a responsibility to ensure that this bill provides the funds and the flexibility that our troops need to accomplish their mission. They have a responsibility to pass a clean bill that does not use funding for our troops as leverage to get special interest spending for their districts."


this from April 18, 2006: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/17/AR2006041701551_pf.html

Mississippi Senators' Rail Plan Challenged
War Bill Includes Millions to Move Just-Rebuilt Line

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A01

Mississippi's two U.S. senators included $700 million in an emergency war spending bill to relocate a Gulf Coast rail line that has already been rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina at a cost of at least $250 million.

Republican Sens. Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, who have the backing of their state's economic development agencies and tourism industry, say the CSX freight line must be moved to save it from the next hurricane and to protect Mississippi's growing coastal population from rail accidents. But critics of the measure call it a gift to coastal developers and the casino industry that would be paid for with money carved out of tight Katrina relief funds and piggybacked onto funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It is ludicrous for the Senate to spend $700 million to destroy and relocate a rail line that is in perfect working order, particularly when it recently underwent a $250 million repair," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who is planning to challenge the funding when the $106.5 billion war spending bill reaches the Senate floor. "American taxpayers are generous and are happy to restore damaged property, but it is wrong for senators to turn this tragedy into a giveaway for economic developers."

Securing money for pet home-state projects is nothing new for Lott, a famous benefactor of the Mississippi coastline, or for Cochran, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. But the fight over the rail funding will come at a sensitive time, when both houses of Congress have promised to rein in such "earmarks" as part of a larger effort to overhaul ethics rules, and when a stubborn budget deficit has made spending of all kinds a sensitive political issue.

At $106.5 billion, the Senate Appropriation Committee's version of the emergency spending bill is already more than $14 billion larger than the version the House passed in March. The Senate bill will probably reach the floor next week.

A $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere" -- linking Alaska's tiny Ketchikan to its airport on Gravina Island -- in last year's highway bill turned into a political firestorm that some Republicans still fear has dampened the spirits of conservative voters. Budget watchdogs are already tagging the Lott-Cochran provision the "railroad to nowhere."

from USAToday, 11/21/2004: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-11-21-budget-bill-extras_x.htm

The $388 billion spending bill that cleared Congress and will head to President Bush for his signature has 11,772 earmarked special projects totaling $15.8 billion, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. Among them:

$25,000 for the study of mariachi music in Nevada's Clark County School District.
$225,000 for the National Wild Turkey Federation in South Carolina.
$1 million for the Missouri Pork Producers Federation to convert animal waste into energy.
$75,000 for renovating the Merry Go Round Playhouse in Auburn, N.Y.
$100,000 for a weather museum in Punxsutawney, Pa.
$800,000 for "soybean rust research" in Ames, Iowa.
$75,000 for "hides and leather research" in Wyndmoor, Pa.
$1,593 for potato storage in Madison, Wis.
$1 million for a world birding center, Texas.
$150,000 to pay for beaver management and damage in Wisconsin.
$200,000 for the American Cotton Museum in Greenville, Texas.
$100,000 for a swimming pool in Ottawa, Kan.
$70,000 for a "Paper Industry International Hall of Fame" in Appleton, Wis.

[Greeby]

1. Hey, if it will get this idiot to veto war funding

Then cram it as full of pork as you can, Madame Speaker

[ProgressiveFool]

2. actual Pork in a bill!

"$1 million for the Missouri Pork Producers Federation to convert animal waste into energy."

[bigtree]

4. MOPORK

http://www.mopork.com/

[Johonny]

3. I believe

the bill has all the money in it Bush needs to prevent Saddam from obtaining WMDs... oh wait has the mission changed since 4 years ago?