This Week's Accomplishments
In the House today:
- By 280 to 152, the Democratic-controlled House voted to require sponsors of the pet spending items to be publicly identified, a move that sponsors say will do away with some of the most egregious waste of the taxpayers’ money.
- [A separate] vote to reinstate the “pay as you go” rule [passed] 280 to 154. It requires that increases in spending on entitlement programs be offset by savings elsewhere, so as not to raise the budget deficit.
And yesterday:
- The new House rules bar members from taking gifts, meals or trips paid for by lobbyists, or the organizations that employ them. The rules also ban lawmakers from using corporate jets and reimbursing the owners.
It's time for the Senate to agree to abide by similar restrictions. And quickly, to avoid distraction from the overarching issue of the new year: resisting an escalation of the war in Iraq. It's encouraging to see the Democratic party credited with "fierce opposition" to the president's senseless and stubborn desire to do more of the same.
“We want to do everything we can to help Iraq succeed in the future but, like many of our senior military leaders, we do not believe that adding more U.S. combat troops contributes to success,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader, wrote to Mr. Bush. “Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain,” the Democrats’ letter said.Also reiterating his deep opposition to any troop increases was Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin. “The administration refuses to acknowledge the devastating impact that keeping our brave troops in Iraq is having on our national security, and now the president is considering sending even more troops,” Mr. Feingold said in a statement. “We should be bringing our troops out of Iraq, not the other way around,” he said. “The American people’s message at the ballot box was loud and clear, and it is past time that the administration listened.”
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