What follows is a description of my journey to determine how Congress is voting on war funding.
I've been noting brief comments in the news regarding additional Afghanistan funding, but when I delved further, none of the articles referred to the bill involved. After a few dead end searches, I looked for "supplemental appropriation" on the Thomas bill search. Knowing that voting took place on July 1 in the House (based on the various news pieces, none of which mentioned the bill number), I looked for the latest action on the bills that came up. Lookie here, HR 4899, the "Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010".
Wait. What? Good thing I have amazing magic powers, because I had to be psychic to figure out that HR 4899 had anything to do with Afghanistan. So, back to Google, where a search for HR4899 + Afghanistan produces lots of results. OK, now I add "billion" to the search, which gives me (along with only 4,990 results), appropriations.house.gov. And there, I see this:
The Senate bill provides a total of $45.5 billion in discretionary funding for FY 2010, of which $37.12 billion is provided for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
OK, Iraq is included. I took that as implicit; I just find it easier to think of both wars as being joined at the hip. But look at those figures; 37.12/45.5 = 81.6%. 81% is war funding, but none of the titles for the different versions have anything to say about that:
1 . Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010 (Introduced in House - IH)[H.R.4899.IH][PDF]
2 . Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010 (Engrossed in House [Passed House] - EH)[H.R.4899.EH][PDF]
3 . Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010 (Referred in Senate - RFS)[H.R.4899.RFS][PDF]
4 . Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010 (Reported in Senate - RS)[H.R.4899.RS][PDF]
5 . Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2010 (Engrossed Amendment Senate - EAS)[H.R.4899.EAS][PDF]
6 . Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010 (Public Print - PP)[H.R.4899.PP][PDF]
Oh, boy, it's a bill to provide summer jobs. Ain't that great?
Yeah. Summer jobs. For Blackwater.
Whatever. I'm getting somewhere now. I know the bill, so all I need to do is look at the voting.
First, House: Passed on 3/24 by 239 - 175, rollcall vote #186. Hmm, what do I see when I look at that? 8 Democrats voted no, 5 Republicans voted yes. Surely there's nothing partisan there. I guess Republicans hate America.
Senate: Lots of amendments, most of which have nothing to do with Iraqistan. Passed on 5/27 by 67-28, rollcall vote #176. And a quick scan shows me that 2 Democrats voted no, although 12 Republicans voted yes. Interesting.
Now back to the House, where a decision is made to break the Senate amendments into 5 parts, and vote on them separately. Oh, and the first vote is actually under H RES 1500. Whereas the remaining votes are described as, for example,
On motion that the House concur in the Senate amendment to the text with the second portion of the divided question [amendment 2]
OK, what does that mean? What are the amendments? Nothing on Thomas about it. I did see something at one point that suggested the info must be posted by July 3, but, this being a holiday weekend, is that really likely? How do I assess the votes? All I can tell at this point is that the Democrats love spending money in Iraqistan, but them Repubs must just hate America. (Actually, what I hate is the vicious arrogance of people who tag their policies as "patriotic", and anything they disagree with as "anti-American". But I digress).
The vote results are
- Yes, barely.
- Yes, handily.
- No (HELL no!).
- No, handily.
- No, handily.
I found the 5 amendments! On, (are you ready for this?) GOP.GOV. Not exactly an objective site. Here's the start of their description of "Amendment #1".
Amendment #1: The amendment adds at least $4 billion in new spending to the bill and offsets the costs with a number of tax increases and a PAYGO timing shift gimmick.
But, barring a better source, I'll just work with this one, and list my interpretation of their propaganda.
Amendment #1:
$1.2 billion to settle a lawsuit from 1997 regarding racial discrimination in farm loans.
$2 billion to settle a lawsuit regarding mismanagement of BIA funds. (I seem to recall that the "mismanagement" was especially heinous).
$1 billion for summer jobs for youths.
Piddly amounts for other stuff (Piddly, in Congressspeak, = less than $1 billion).
These are supplemental appropriations? I should be reacting with WTF?, but I'd need to be at least mildly suprised for that.
Amendment #2:
Gop.gov describes this as the "Obey amendment". Oh? Aren't these amendments from the Senate? In any case, it's said to add billions to the bill, but there's nothing to clarify what the additions are.
Amendment #3: Now here's my favorite. I'll just show the exact verbiage from Goperville: "The amendment strikes all military funding in the bill for the ongoing war in Afghanistan". The result? 25-376. The ayes are listed below:
Clarke, Clay, Duncan, Edwards (MD), Ellison, Filner, Garamendi, Grayson, Grijalva, Gutierrez, Jackson (IL), Johnson (IL), Kucinich, Lewis (GA), Michaud, Nadler (NY), Napolitano, Paul, Pingree (ME), Schrader, Serrano, Sires, Stark,, Velázquez, Welch
Amendment #4: Again, Gooperville's verbiage; "The amendment would prohibit any funds for the military operations in Afghanistan from being used for any purpose other than the protection of personnel and the withdrawal of troops".
Amendment #5: Require a new national intelligence estimate, require the president submit a plan with a timetable for removing forces from Afghanistan, increase oversight on private contractors, and require that money be used only for withdrawing (in essence).
So, at the end of this long journey, I am able to identify the votes in all this mess that are most important to me, with Amdt #3 at the top. You'd think from looking at most of the votes that Democrats support war and Republicans are for peace. That's half right. The vote on amendment #3 shows where the real positions are. I just wish I could find the corresponding vote in the Senate, but I'm too burnt out right now.
What a relief to know that I can so easily review the voting records of Congress. Not.
And last, kudos to the 25 who voted for Amdt 3.