SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE COURTNEY!!!!

by: Weicker Liker

Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 17:34:44 PM EDT

Through a written statement on Thursday, Courtney trumpeted his endorsement of the spending plan, describing it as one that "honors our troops" and serves as "a balanced compromise."

To be fair, Courtney gets it right in standing  behind our armed forces, giving the resources they need to be effective in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Its also admirable for him to have demonstrated his deep compassion for our injured soliders whose health care system has recently come under fire.

What's disappointing, however, is Courtney's blind support for a proposal that contains billions of dollars of our tax dollars for items unrelated to helping our troops. Its also terrible that he chose to support a deadline for withdrawl of our forces. That just gives the enemy a signal to lie low.

This "emergency" spending proposal represents everything that Democrats promised they would not be when they passed their "100 Hour Agenda"

Courtney promised us that he would be a different kind of public servant. He unfortunately appears he is falling in line with the misguided priorities of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

The Democratic Caucus seems so bitterly divided over the Iraq War, they need to resort to putting "pork" in spending bills to hold their fractured caucus together.

Unfortunately, supplemental appropriations bills are exempt from spending caps and other budget controls, which makes them  magnets for projects and programs that might not stand up to the scrutiny of the budget process.

Below is a list of spending and policy provisions in the supplemental that Courtney did not list in his press release and are unrelated to military operations. 

*$500 million for emergency wildfires suppression; the Forest Service currently has $831 million for this purpose;

*$400 million for rural schools;

*$283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract program;

*$120 million to compensate for the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the shrimp and menhaden fishing industries;

*$100 million for citrus assistance (2005 Homeland Livestock Indemnity Program) ;

*$74 million for peanut storage costs;

*$60.4 million for salmon fisheries in the Klamath River region in California and Oregon;

*$50 million for asbestos mitigation at the U.S. Capitol Plant;

*$48 million in salaries and expenses for the Farm Service Agency;

*$35 million for NASA risk mitigation projects in Gulf Coast;

*$25 million for Calfornia spinach growers;

*$25 million for livestock (2005 Hurricane Livestock Indemnity Program);

*$20 million for Emergency Conservation Program for farmland damaged by freezing temperatures;

*$16 million for security upgrades to House of Representatives office buildings;

*$10 million for the International Boundary and Water Commission for the Rio Grande Flood Control System Rehabilitation project;

*$6.4 million for House of Representative's Salaries and Expenses Account for business continuity and disaster recovery expenses;

*$5 million for losses suffered by aquaculture businesses including breeding, rearing, or transporting live fish as a result of viral hemorrhagic septicemia;

*$4 million for the Office of Women's Health at the Food and Drug Administration; and

*A minimum wage increase, which is the subject of separate legislation.