Democracy Has Prevailed.

March 23, 2007

Congressman Mike Doyle on Pork

I had a very nice chat last night with Congressman Mike Doyle where we discussed, among other things, the Supplemental bill making its way through The House.

Yes, the same Supplemental that Congressman Murphy erroneously complains about here.

He also said he was surprised when he heard the news about Bill Peduto withdrawing from the mayoral race (He added, "I like Bill, he's a good guy. We've worked together on a number of projects.")

Anyway, he said that despite the news and the complaints from the rightwing (see the Murphy posting above), there's nothing new about attaching new spending initiatives onto Supplemental Appropriations bills. He explained that by definition supplemental appropriations are for things that you couldn't have planned for. Supplementals are for the unforseen stuff that couldn't make it (because it was "unforseen") into the routine budgetary process.

Here's what it says at the Wikipedia on the House Budget Committee:
The committee also reviews supplemental budget requests submitted by the President, which cover items which for one reason or another were not included in the original budget request, usually for emergency spending.
And on the Senate side:
The committee also reviews supplemental spending bills (covering unforseen or emergency expenses not previously budgeted).
So right or wrong, that's the way things have gone. He said that nothing novel was going on - a Supplemental was being forged to gain the most support, the most votes. But the buying of votes? Not happenning.

As of last night, while he said it was "still up in the air," he was optimistic the bill would pass. Indeed the AP is reporting this morning that the House Dems are confident it will pass. Doyle said it looks like there'd be a few Republicans voting for the bill - and if it's obvious the bill is going to pass without their votes, a few more Republicans will vote for it.

Yea, I know - that's confusing. The thing is those Republicans don't want to look like it was their votes that pushed it over the top. But if it's passed anyway, they're safe to vote for it.

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