One Man's Pork is Another Man's "Emergency Objective"

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Leader Alert

One Man's Pork is Another Man's "Emergency Objective"

Washington, Mar 23, 2007 -

On CNN this morning anchor Miles O’Brien posed some important questions about the Democrats’ pork-laden war spending bill to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD):

O’BRIEN: We got to talk about the pork. There is a lot of pork added on to it. Let’s go through the list briefly. There is $74 Million in there to help peanut growers store their peanuts, there’s $25 million for spinach growers dealing with that e. Coli problem, $252 million in milk subsidies, $3.3 billion in crop and livestock losses.

All of these may be worthy programs one way or another, but doesn’t it in some way trivialize what is perhaps as important a vote as any vote you'll have if you start loading the pork up on this?

HOYER: Absolutely not. First of all, I don’t accept your definition of pork. … This is a bill that will have add-ons yes, but add-ons for what we believe are emergency objectives.”

When discussing “emergency objectives,” was Hoyer referring to the following examples of unrelated spending items Democratic leaders have stuffed into the emergency troop funding bill:

$25 million for spinach [p. 112]
$50 million for the “Capitol Hill Power Plant” [p. 133]
$5 million for tropical fish [p. 116]
$283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract Program [p. 115]
$74 million for peanut storage costs [p. 115]
$120 million for shrimp and menhaden fishing industries [p. 84]
$25 million for livestock producers [p. 81]
$15 million for crop damage [p. 82]
$100 million for citrus producers [p. 83]
…and the list goes on.

Does the Majority Leader believe these “emergency objectives” belong in a war spending bill?

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HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner