How Much Is Your Principle Worth?
(Or How Laws are Really Made)

Regardless of your position on the War in Iraq (yep, that’s a google link so you can look around for yourself), by now you probably believe that the Republican Party is generally in favor of “completing the mission” and the Democratic Party are in favor of “a phased withdrawal” or “troop redeployment”.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives, while the media is distracted with the smoke and mirrors game of Alberto Gonzalez’s firing of 8 U.S. attorneys, will vote on bill that will ultimately require the President to withdraw troops from Iraq by August 31, 2008 (assuming everything goes swimmingly in Iraq between now and then. Otherwise, he will have to “redeploy” them earlier than that). Oh, and the bill will also do about $20 billion or so more to help sweeten the pot.

The Democrats are doing their level best to garner as much support for this bill as possible, tossing in everything but the kitchen sink to get Republicans and a few conservative Democrats to sign on. Surely our representatives can’t be bought off, right? They'll do what they think is the right thing, right? They'll stand on principle, right?

Right?

For Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), there is $25 million for spinach growers hurt by last year's E. coli scare. For three conservative Democrats in Georgia, there is $75 million for peanut storage. For lawmakers from the bone-dry West, there is $500
million for wildfire suppression. An additional $120 million is earmarked for shrimp and Atlantic menhaden fishermen.

For more than a year, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R) has tried unsuccessfully to secure federal funds to prevent salt water from intruding on rice fields in his lowland Louisiana district. So it came as a surprise last week when Boustany found $15 million in the House's huge war spending bill for his rice farmers. He hadn't even asked that the bill include it.

Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-La.), who is running for his state's governorship, has conspicuously refused to say whether he can vote against $2.9 billion for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery, including $1.3 billion for New Orleans levee repairs.

Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), usually a reliable vote for the Republican leadership, is
undecided as he ponders how he can vote against drought relief he has worked for
months to secure. The same goes for Musgrave, whose district has been devastated
by drought.

Democrats who may well have turned solidly against the bill are still weighing their options. Last year, Rep. John Barrow (Ga.) circulated a petition trying to get Republican House leaders to schedule a vote on drought relief. This year, Barrow's advocacy has yielded $3.7 billion worth of agricultural disaster assistance in the war spending bill, which he bragged about last week in a statement to constituents. The
conservative Democrat, who narrowly escaped defeat in November, is now undecided on the Iraq bill.

Right.

For the record, President Bush is set to veto this bill. Yes, I know that he might have a hard time finding that veto pen of his in his desk, given how often he uses it, but he’s got people looking right now, I promise you. So what are principles worth? Apparently anywhere from a couple million to a few billion…

…of your dollars.