Thanks for your comments on my
post earlier in the week. Many of you asked to contextualize what $1.6 billion
dollars means and further how much $1.6 billion compares to the profits oil
companies are making and what we're spending in Iraq. There are many answers
to these questions and many ways to answer, however they're all answered by
this: that's the cost of the Republican culture of corruption. From the waste,
fraud and abuse in contracts both in Iraq and in our Gulf Coast to the Medicare
prescription drug bill, Republicans are stuffing the pockets of the special
interests at the expense of our present and our future.
The Leader's "30 Something" working group does a fabulous job at exposing
the cost of corruption and I encourage you to
look
at their posters. It is clear Republicans, from Congress to the White House,
have no shame when it comes to
racking
up our debt and deceiving the public. In case it's not clear, Republicans
control Congress and they have, without hesitation, abused the rules governing
the House of Representatives to suppress our democratic process. Rep. Slaughter
has blogged here many times on this. As long as Republicans control Congress,
Democrats will be talking about the cost of corruption in very clear terms.
This brings me to why I'm here today.
I'm here to answer another question many of you asked: How are Democrats fighting?
Kos posted
yesterday on the budget bill debacle, but let me summarize: the Republican Leadership
and the President don't seem to care if the House actually passes a bill for
it to become law. On February 1, 2006, the House of Representatives passed the
Budget Reconciliation Spending Cuts Conference Report by a two-vote margin,
with every Democrat voting in opposition. Yet, when the President signed the
bill into law, he signed a different version of the bill than the one passed
by the House. This bill has been voted on five times,
passing
by very narrow margins each time with the Republican leadership twisting
arms to ensure passage.
Rep.
Rangel summarized Democratic outrage to this complete disregard for our constitution
in a letter to Speaker Hastert last week:
This situation might be understandable, though still deeply troubling, if
there had been no knowledge of the problem until after it occurred. But the
Republican leadership in both the House and Senate were aware of this problem
prior to the final House vote on February 1, and did nothing to prevent it
from occurring or to correct it afterward. Instead, a decision was made to
change the law en route to the President.
This morning, I introduced a Privileged Resolution demanding an immediate Ethics
investigation into the abuse of power surrounding the inaccuracies in the process
and enrollment of the Budget Reconciliation legislation:
Whereas the Republican Leadership has engaged in a continuing pattern
of withholding accurate information vital for Members of the House of Representatives
to have before voting on legislation, and has inserted numerous controversial
provisions into completed conference reports in the dead of night without notifying
Democratic Members of the House, the press, or the public;
Whereas on February 1, 2006 the Republican Leadership permitted a vote on
House Resolution 653 to concur in a Senate amendment to the conference agreement
on Budget Reconciliation, despite the inclusion of inaccurate numbers in provisions
that cost the Medicare program an additional $2 billion dollars;
Whereas although the Senate Enrolling Clerk had mistakenly changed critical
numbers which had a major financial significance for Medicare, and had notified
the House of those errors two weeks prior to the vote on February 1, the Republican
Leadership deliberately chose to ignore that notification and instead allowed
the House to vote on an incorrect version of this legislation;
Whereas the conference agreement on Budget Reconciliation passed the House
by the narrowest of margins, 216-214, with every Democrat voting in opposition,
and knowledge of this mistake may have influenced the outcome of this vote,
which is why the Republican Leadership chose not to pursue the proper course
in correcting this legislation;
Whereas as a result of the concealment of these errors in the enrollment
of the bill, the law signed by the President of the United States on February
8, 2006 is not the same as the text cleared by the House on February 1, 2006;
Whereas the effect of these actions raises serious constitutional questions
and jeopardizes the legal status of this legislation and The Washington Post
has reported: "Now there are questions about the legality of signing
a bill the House technically did not pass" (The Washington Post, February
9, 2006);
Whereas Republican incompetence led to numerous errors in this legislation,
and two additional errors in the Senate amendment that was agreed to by House
Resolution 653 were found by the Congressional Budget Office in a report dated
January 27, 2006, five days BEFORE the House voted on the final conference
report: "The (conference report on Budget Reconciliation) contains two
apparent errors in legislative language: one in section 8006 regarding direct
loans to parents of postsecondary students, and one in section 10002 regarding
bankruptcy fees." (CBO Report on S. 1932, January 27, 2006)
Whereas in this ongoing pattern of abuse of power, the Republican Leadership
on December 17, 2005 deliberately misled Members of the House by inserting
into a completed conference report without debate or notification a provision
granting liability protection for drug companies from cases involving consumers
injured by avian flu vaccine; (HR 2863, the Defense Appropriations Conference
Report)
Whereas the Republican Leadership inserted this liability vaccine provision
at midnight, AFTER conferees signed what they understood to be the final document
seven hours earlier, thereby breaking their word and assurances that "Avian
Flu shall be funded at the House level, and will not include either indemnity
or compensation provisions." (House Appropriations Committee Summary,
December 17, 2005, 4:40 PM)
Whereas during passage of the Prescription Drug bill in 2003, the Republican
Leadership and the committees of jurisdiction ignored the warnings from knowledgeable
experts that the true cost of the legislation was potentially hundreds of
billions of dollars higher than the official estimate, and intentionally misled
Members of the House by withholding information for the sole purpose of winning
passage of this extremely controversial bill by a single vote in the middle
of the night;
Whereas the Republican Leaderships culture of corruption and its repeated
efforts to thwart the normal legislative process by cutting corners, inserting
hand-written provisions into completed conference reports in the dead of night,
and rushing through legislation with major errors, forces Members to vote
on controversial legislation without thorough time for review and must be
denounced;
Therefore, be it resolved that:
The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct shall begin an immediate investigation
into the abuse of power surrounding the inaccuracies in the process and enrollment
of the Budget Reconciliation legislation cleared for the President on February
1, 2006.
Until we have a Democratic majority in Congress we can not ensure that the
Constitution will be upheld or that the voices of the American people will be
heard over the special interest megaphones. But at each and every abuse of power,
I will be fighting against the Republican culture of corruption.