[Infowarrior] - OpEd: The Insidious Fine Print

[Richard Forno]

December 13, 2011
The Insidious Fine Print
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/opinion/the-insidious-fine-print-in-the-spending-bill.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

It looks like a small throwaway line in a 2012 spending bill: no federal funds may be used to carry out chapters 95 or 96 of the Internal Revenue Code. A little digging shows that those chapters happen to authorize the presidential election public financing system. A few House Republicans, who have long hated the system, thought they could get rid of it by inserting the line in a bill to keep the government from shutting down this weekend.

The provision will eventually be deleted, but it is only one of scores of policy riders that Republicans have tried to insert in the spending bill. Most have nothing to do with Congress’s basic job of financing the government, but nongermane provisions have become standard procedure for conservative lawmakers to pursue ideological goals with a few words in must-pass bills. Like pieces of shrapnel, they have to be extracted one at a time, but a few always seem to remain, doing a great deal of damage.

The 2012 omnibus spending bill was actually proceeding rather smoothly. Lawmakers from both parties had largely reached agreement on how much money would be given to the various federal departments, in part because the overall spending limit was set by the debt-ceiling deal last summer. But that made it a more attractive target for the ideologues, and it quickly began to sag under the weight of its attachments.

Some riders border on the ridiculous. One would end the ban on firearms and crossbows on water projects managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Representative Paul Gosar, a Republican of Arizona, (supported by a few Democrats, as well) said campers on corps lakes need to be able to defend themselves.

Another would ban the Energy Department from enforcing incandescent lighting standards. The president would be banned from hiring an aide on climate change issues. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting could no longer buy NPR programs.

Many of the riders are more serious, including several attempts to roll back environmental regulations on interstate air pollution, toxic power-plant emissions, and water pollution from mining. The District of Columbia could not offer a needle-exchange program or spend its own funds on abortions for poor women. (The abortion ban, also included in last year’s spending bill, does not apply to any state.) And, in time for Christmas, Republicans are trying to limit visits by Cuban-Americans to families on Cuba, a policy President Obama relaxed.

Many of these riders will be dropped in negotiations with the Senate, but some, very possibly including the crackdown on Cuban travel and abortion in the capital, will remain. The outcome won’t be clear until the bill gets to a final vote, probably later this week. It is being held up because a separate bill to extend the payroll tax cut has also been delayed by extraneous Republican riders, including advancing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, cutting off the child tax credit to illegal immigrants and dropping pollution rules on industrial boilers.        

When Republicans took over the House last year, they pledged to “end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with ‘must-pass’ legislation.” If any of them wonder why the popularity of Congress is at an all-time low, they need only flip through their violation of that pledge on virtually every page of this legislation.


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