Flabbergasted

That about sums it up.

Yesterday, Congress passed H.R. 2346 - the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009. Why am I so flabbergasted? Let me count the ways...

First, this bill provides over $100B in supplemental funding to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It provides no substantive provisions which would serve as "strings attached" such as a timetable for troop withdrawal. Additionally, it provides (by my quick reading and research) a lot ($75B?) of funding to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to assist in global bailouts and the like.

Second, I tried to research this bill in more detail so that I would be able to provide quality, objective insight to its details. This thing is a mess. It is long and riddled with changes from the original House version to the Senate version (which appears to be the one which the House agreed to yesterday). I unfortunately do not have the time to dedicate to this type of research.

Third, this thing originally passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support on May 14. It then passed the Senate (after significant amendment) on May 21, again with overwhelming bipartisan support. Yesterday, the House voted upon the bill as referred by the conference committee. (My understanding of this is that the House voted on the Senate version as-is with no changes coming from the conference committee since there will be no additional vote in the Senate. I stand to be corrected on this point.) This time, the vote was pretty much on party line - passing 226-202. This flip-flop is bothersome. What suddenly drove almost all House Republicans to decide that the bill which they previously supported and received GOP support in the Senate in its current form to change their mind?

Well, that leads me to point number four. The GOP is now (after years of supporting the Bush administration) deciding that we cannot afford more spending on the wars in Iraq. Further, after supporting the IMF under the Bush administration (and in the Senate), the GOP has decided we cannot afford that any more either. Now, I happen to agree with the "Nay" vote, but this is the either the height of hypocrisy or a tacit admission of historical stupidity by many House Republicans.

On a related note, irritant number five is the response by House Democrats. Only thirty-two brave souls stepped away from the party line to oppose this bill. I'd love to spend the time to see how well this group matches up to those who opposed supplemental war funding under Bush. Actually, I'm more interested in seeing those who opposed Bush's requests but now support the same request from Obama. By the way, fifty-one Democrats opposed this bill back in May.

I'm sure there are more things about this that irritate me, but we'll leave it at that. I urge my readers to wake up, recognize that Washington is full of hypocrites who only want to play games and spend your money. Tell your friends. Demand change and vote your representatives out of office.