Bloated Bill Backed by Bush's Big Energy Buddies Blocked!

Good to see that Senators are standing up to the corporate welfare that has become one of the hallmarks of this administration.

 

Democrats continue their obstructionist ways. This energy bill is vital in spurring economic growth in the sector. This bill will create many jobs. It has broad reaching economic and security implications. It is a shame that the liberals would rather have a weaker economy, a weaker job market and a weaker national security.

Once again, the Democrats erupt like a pustule upon the buttock in an effort to obstruct progress in America.

 

The Republicans who opposed did oppose it because of pork.

Dashle supported it because of pork.

And the Dems opposed it because the environmentalists are watching.

 

The Democrats erupt like a pustule upon the buttock because the Republicans are the buttock!

 

Sam, the article indicates that only 6 Republicans voted against. Clearly, the liberals were the driving force behind this economic and national security set-back.

 

Where's the love for me... dutifully trying to keep thread counts down...

http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68381

 

Socialize the costs, privatize the profits. Same ole, same ole.

 

Look at the liberals coming out of the woodwork to oppose this bill which would:

A) Create jobs
B) Strengthen national security
C) Help prevent blackouts
D) Provide economic incentive for clean coal technologies
E) Give a boost to the energy sector, a sector which influences nearly all aspects of our economy.

Look out below! This pustule is about to EXPLODE

 

But why is it a horrible bill? Seems to me like RocketmanTex is a Republican on this issue.

 

1st of all, don't know what inter alia means. Secondly, is it your position that it's bad for enviornmental reasons, corporate welfare, or both?

 

"I'm not saying that this bill won't generate some energy. It will certainly fuel the coffers of big oil and gas corporations. It will propel the wealthy special interests. And it will boost the deficit into the stratosphere. Indeed, this legislation can be fairly called the Leave no Lobbyist Behind Act of 2003.
There are also four proposals known as 'green bonds' for construction of commercial buildings that will cost taxpayers $227 million to finance approximately $2 billion in private bonds. One of my favorite green bond proposals is a $150 million riverfront area in Shreveport, Louisiana. This river walk has about 50 stores, a movie theater and a bowling alley. One of the new tenants in this Louisiana Riverwalk is a Hooters restaurant. Yes my friends. Here we have an energy bill subsidizing both hooters and polluters." - Senator John McCain

Good to see there's at least 6 members of the GOP who haven't completely abandoned the concept of fiscal responsibility. It seems that there are several "conservatives" on this board who place partisanship above principles.

 

T_J's obvious externalization of his preoccupations with his own skin disfunctions is disturbing at the least, and perhaps worthy of institutionalization.

T_J, quit popping them. They will get infected. Just wash your skin more often. And stay on your meds, m'kay?

 

This article in the Washington Post discusses the bipartisan alarm over current and proposed future spending....couple this with the tax cute and yikes....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8763-2003Nov23.html

Alarms Sounded On Cost of GOP Bills
Lawmakers Increase Spending to Win Votes
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page A01

As Congress rushes to conclude its 2003 session, Republican leaders are trying to garner votes for controversial legislation by loading the bills with billions of dollars in added costs that analysts said would expand the budget deficit for years to come. The year-end binge has alarmed analysts in Washington and on Wall Street, coming as it does after three years of presidential and congressional initiatives that have both substantially boosted government spending and shrunk its tax base.


"The U.S. budget is out of control," the Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs & Co. warned Friday in its weekly newsletter to clients.

In the final days of the congressional session, GOP leaders added billions of dollars to energy and Medicare bills to help persuade key factions to support the legislation. Overall, the energy bill would cost $33 billion and the Medicare bill $400 billion.

Less noticed were congressional moves to expand veterans' benefits by $22 billion and increase spending on forest-thinning projects from $420 million a year to $760 million to ensure passage of forest legislation promoted by the White House. Lawmakers are also trying to extend 14 expiring tax cuts through 2004, at a cost to the Treasury of more than $7 billion.

All those actions come in the face of a federal budget deficit already projected to rise from a record $374 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 to close to or above $500 billion in the current fiscal year.

"The only thing I can tell you is evidently the word 'tomorrow' no longer exists in the vocabulary of otherwise responsible members of Congress," said Warren Rudman, a former New Hampshire Republican senator and long-standing budget hawk. "They are acting as if there is no tomorrow."

Former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin said, "Our political system has simply lost its willingness to take the very difficult path of maintaining fiscal discipline."

.............

And all of that has come on top of three consecutive tax cuts totaling more than $1.7 trillion over the next decade.

White House officials remain sanguine. A brightening economic picture should offset some of the additional costs, said J.T. Young, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget. The deficit will peak this year but is still on course to be cut in half by 2008, he said.

Stuart Roy, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), said the "hundreds of thousands of jobs" that would be created by the energy bill would more than offset its cost, and by injecting free-market competition into Medicare, the prescription drug bill should actually restrain costs.

But some budget experts say such optimism is a large part of the problem.

"It's very hard for Congress to show fiscal restraint when the White House hasn't raised the deficit as a primary issue," said Robert D. Reischauer, a former Congressional Budget Office director who now heads the Urban Institute. "Spending restraint and tax increases are unnatural acts on Capitol Hill. It takes some political leadership from White House, some external motivation, to get Congress to focus on the deficit, and there doesn't seem to be any of those forces at work."

Goldman Sachs economists concluded last week that tax cuts and surging spending will push the deficit this year to half a trillion dollars, and "any thoughts of relief thereafter are a pipe dream until political priorities adjust."

................

 

How ya figure, Juniormint?