Hiding The Money
Well, well, well. It appears the Associated Press has decided its job actually includes reporting the actual news, not just pontificating and disguising opinion as news. They are also reporting the news that is negative about the conduct of Democrats. Will wonders never cease.
WASHINGTON - After promising unprecedented openness regarding Congress' pork barrel practices, House Democrats are moving in the opposite direction as they draw up spending bills for the upcoming budget year.
Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify "earmarks" — lawmakers' requests for specific projects and contracts for their states.
Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them…….
……The House-Senate compromise bills due for final action in September cannot be amended and are subject to only one hour of debate, precluding challenges to individual projects.
Obey insists he is reluctantly taking the step because Appropriations Committee members and staff have not had enough time to fully review the 36,000 earmark requests that have flooded the committee.
What Obey is doing runs counter to new rules that Democrats promised would make such spending decisions more open.
I posted about this little sleight of hand trick earlier - the Washington Post was on it early. But when the wire services start slapping the Democrats openly, it has really gone national. So much for the most open and ethical House, eh? Like I said earlier. Meet the new boss, ever so much worse than the old boss.
(And there is no chance that the voters won't notice that the Democrats broke their promises even faster than usual for politicians. After all, the AP is sending it out now.)
Other Links to this Post
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Sister Toldjah » Shocking: Democrats sidestepping their own earmark rules — Sunday, 3 June , 2007 @ 8:52 am
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UrbanGrounds » Blog Archive » House Dems Breaking Their Own Rules — Sunday, 3 June , 2007 @ 2:53 pm
By Quilly Mammoth, Sunday, 3 June , 2007 @ 2:42 pm
There’s something odd going on at the AP. Today they openly slam the Democrats for breaking their own rules and hiding pork. Yesterday they published a story that actually identified Islamic terrorists as, well, Muslims.