The Senate Democrats had as much trouble rounding up Senators to vote for defeat in Iraq as the House was finding Representatives.
Similar legislation drew only 48 votes in the Senate earlier this month, but Democratic leaders hoped that changes made since then would be enough to persuade holdout Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas to swing behind the proposal and ensure its survival.
What changes might those be? The House's solution was to buy votes with pork. The Senate Democrats figured they might try the same. In discussing this subject last Friday, ABC News noted
Because Democrats may not have the 51 votes to pass their bill, they may have to water it down or add some pork to entice reluctant senators to support it.
Well they didn't and they did: 20 Billion Dollars worth of pork.
Several Republicans took to the Senate floor on Monday, criticizing Democrats for including about $20 billion for domestic programs in the spending request. Senators were also considering attaching such issues as the minimum wage increase to the legislation. The version that passed in the House last week included a long list of items not related to Iraq.
Now Vermont's Senator Patrick Leahy is not a guy you have to buy. He has a terminal case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. But at the same time, he's not one to pass up bringing home the bacon. And bring home the bacon he did. During the debate
Conservatives say appropriators have circumvented an anti-earmark pledge made during consideration of the fiscal 2007 continuing resolution (PL 110-5). Appropriators rescinded $2 million from that measure and redirected it to the supplemental to start the “Educational Excellence Program” at the University of Vermont.
Why? Because he could
Vermont Democrat Patrick J. Leahy is an Appropriations subcommittee chairman.
The Senate version of the Emergency Spending Bill to fund the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will likely pass the Senate by a narrow margin, is special because it does not count against the budget. And earmarks (pork) don't get voted on.
This bill will be vetoed by the President. But no veto can erase the fact that some used our Military men and women who are risking their lives in order to further the perogative of corruption.
We may not know who all of them are, but the ones we know will be stained.
Not that it matters. For they are shameless.