National defense bill loaded with non-military pork (like Renee’s museum)
The US House is loading up a defense authorization bill with so much non-defense related pork that even The Washington Post is appalled:
A sweeping $521 billion package that authorizes the military to expand operations against the Islamic State and provides billions for the upgrade of military equipment hit a snag on Tuesday over something that has nothing to do with the military.
Tucked inside the bill’s more than 1,600 pages is language creating six national parks, expanding nine others and establishing a bipartisan commission to explore building a national women’s history museum.[…]
You might remember said museum. Renee Ellmers has been the primary advocate for this project. She’s boasted about it on her web site, and we’ve talked about it. Speaker John Boehner thinks the bill is great as-is, while some Senate conservatives are calling for the non-military nonsense to be yanked:
[…]But some GOP lawmakers warned Tuesday that they will use any available procedural tools to slow the bill’s eventual passage.
“A bill that defines the needs of our nation’s defense is hardly the proper place to trample on private property rights,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a longtime opponent of what he views as excessive federal spending, wrote in a letter to GOP leaders that was released Tuesday.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said that adding the land changes to the bill is “a disservice to members of the Armed Forces.”[…]
This is a neat legislative trick that gets pulled all the time — even in the North Carolina House. Vote against the pork, and you vote against giving the military what they need. Vote against the pork, you kill the project you told the voters you were going to get.
ObamaCare is killing the economy and putting a strain on already stretched family budgets. Our southern border is being overrun. We just reached $18 TRILLION in debt as a nation. And these scoundrels are perpetrating stuff like this.
Whether it is amnesty or big spending pork, John Turncoat Boehner is looking more and more like Nancy Pelosi in drag.
Republicans can and MUST do better than that!
Remember Democrat pork barrel and wasteful spending BAAAAAADDDD!!!!! How dare those evil Democrats!!!!!!!! :-(((((
Republican pork barrel and wasteful spending GOOOOOODDDDD!!!!! Hey we’re getting things done, being effective, its what we were elected to do! :-))))))) (and we make good money on the side doing it too!)
And they seem to forget that this is why the Republican Congress of 2006 (remember Robin Hayes?) got shown the door and we ended up with a Speaker Pelosi.
Be interesting to see how Mr. Send-me-to-Washington-and-I’ll-cut-spending (George Holding) not only votes on this one but whether or not he supports Boehner for Speaker next month.
Sometimes we can’t help ourself regardless how hard we try. Renee has worked so hard at Repersenting the DC crowd and telling everyone back home how conservative she is, so now she would like a museum to share her accomplishments with us;
I’m thinking: wait a minute I’m thinking;
Okay admit this is tough feel free to fill in the blank’s to help remind us all.
When they run out of anything substantive to pursue, they build monuments to themselves.
welllllll lookie at the cute wittle Rinette! – like boehner with lipstick and a wig. heads up, if your a real conservative and you feel a sharp pain in your back, it’s her knife.
When you write these types of articles, could you please provide the Bill’s Number so we can refer to it when we tweet, call or e-mail?
American Thinker has more
On page 1,324 of the bill is a provision that “creates a federal commission to develop a plan to build a National Women’s History Museum.” And the bill’s wording doesn’t even pretend that the museum has anything to do with national defense.
Also in the bill are “land grabs”:
275,000 acres designated as new Wilderness Areas;
Four new National Parks;
Seven National Park studies for new parks to be;
16 National Heritage extensions;
Three new Wild and Scenic River (WSR) designations.;
Three new WSR studies that are expected to become new designations;
Land entitlement for Sealaska, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/here_congress_goes_again.html#ixzz3L7eCKOq6
RULES COMMITTEE PRINT 113–58
HOUSE AMENDMENT TO THE TEXT OF S. 1847
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT-113HPRT91496/pdf/CPRT-113HPRT91496.pdf
I see that much of it was written by Carl Levin, which under the deft leadership of Boehner makes perfect sense. I see Orrin Hatch says it needs to sail through since we’re in the Lame Duck “hurry and pass” mode. Under the leadership of McConnell, this makes perfect sense as well. I also see that the Republican Presidential candidate from 2008 is champing at the bit to take over the Armed Services Committee so he can focus on closing Gitmo. Under the leadership of Harry Reid this is a sensible action for ol’ Juan.
This is lining up to be a two year trip down Kafka Lane for the people who actually thought they had tossed out at least some of the garbage.
Orrin Hatch is not only senile these days, but he has gone native inside the beltway, and is on the opposite end of the spectrum from where he started out. He is the perfect poster boy for term limits. Of course, Thad Cochran would be another poster boy for term limits. A few months ago, he even got lost on the way to a meeting he has been attending for years and is always held weekly the same place, but he walked into the wrong room. And then there was Thad’s remark at a campaign event (that the press outside the local paper covered up for him) about how he had ”numerous indecent encounters with farm animals” in his youth in the area. But I guess he has that problem straightened out now, since he has his live-in mistress on his Senatorial staff (you know, sort of like Wilbur Mills did) and takes her at government expense on numerous junkets all over the world.
The Thad Cochrans and Orrin Hatchs of the Senate make you realize how screwed up Washington, DC really is, and there are Democrats just as bad or worse.
Oh, and if you ever think of giving money to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, don’t. They were heavily involved in trying to keep both of these senile dinosaurs in office in the primary against more able and younger conservatives. And by frittering money away in primaries that they should have stayed out of, the NRSC did not have money left for close races like Scott Brown in New Hampshire that they could have otherwise helped get across the finish line. A better place to give money is the Senate Conservatives Fund or the Club for Growth.
Just give them time and the GOP Establishment will destroy themselves again just like they did in 2006.