Congress gives the military the shaft

[Don Roley]

http://sroblog.com/2009/10/15/u-s-tr...hington-times/

Shaun Waterman THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet
projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition
and training for U.S. troops, including those fighting wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, according to an analysis.
Among the 778 such projects, known as earmarks, packed into the bill: $25
million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and
$20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.
While earmarks are hardly new in Washington, "in 30 years on Capitol Hill,
I never saw Congress mangle the defense budget as badly as this year," said
Winslow Wheeler, a former Senate staffer who worked on defense funding and
oversight for both Republicans and Democrats. He is now a senior fellow at
the Center for Defense Information, an independent research organization.
Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, called the transfer of funds from
Pentagon operations and maintenance "a disgrace."
"The Senate is putting favorable headlines back home above our men and
women fighting on the front lines," he said in a statement.
Mr. Wheeler, who conducted the study, compared the Obama administration's
requests for funds with the $636 billion spending bill that the Senate
passed. He discovered that senators added $2.6 billion in pet projects while
spending $4 billion less than the administration requested for fiscal 2010,
which began Oct. 1.
Mr. Wheeler said that senators took most of the cash for the projects from
the "operations and maintenance" or O&M accounts.
"These are the accounts that pay for troop training, repairs, spares and
supplies for vehicles, weapons, ships and planes, food and fuel," Mr. Wheeler
said.
Raiding those accounts to fund big-ticket projects the military does not
want, but that benefit senators' home states or campaign contributors,
amounts to "rancid gluttony," he said.
The administration's budget requested $156 billion for the regular O&M
account and $81 billion for O&M for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill
passed by the Senate cut $2.4 billion from the regular account and $655
million from the war O&M fund.
Senate appropriators insisted that the O&M accounts, despite the cuts, do
not shortchange the troops.
"The operation and maintenance title is fully funded," Appropriations
Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat, said during the debate on
the bill. "There is no shortage. ... The committee is deeply concerned that
the critical operational needs of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and
Marines are met with the finest equipment available."
Money for the Kennedy Institute was inserted by Mr. Inouye and Sen. John
Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat. Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, and
Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, sought the funding for the World
War II museum.
Whitney Smith, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry, said the earmark was "a worthy
investment."
"Sen. Kennedy served on the Armed Services Committee for 27 years, where he
fought to deliver top-of-the-line body armor and armored Humvees to
protect our troops and save lives. Educating Americans about these battles is a
core mission for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, which showcases one
senator's ability to make a difference," Mr. Smith wrote in an e-mail. "This
funding will help the Edward M. Kennedy Institute become one the nation's
pre-eminent civic educational institutions, and Sen. Kerry is proud to have
worked with Chairman Inouye to make it possible."
Mrs. Landrieu said she was "proud to fight" for money for the World War II
museum, which is not just a "monument to the brave men and women who served
during World War II," but also "a constant reminder to future generations
about the tremendous sacrifice of millions of Americans." She added that
the earmarked funds "will help to increase tourism to New Orleans."
Beyond those two earmarks, the largest in the Senate bill are:
- $20 million for Humvee maintenance at an Army National Guard installation
in Maine, sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, Maine
Republicans. The senators said cuts in the maintenance program proposed by the
administration would result in the "layoff of 175 employees in a region
already suffering" from the recession.
- $20 million for the Maui Space Surveillance System in Hawaii, requested
by Mr. Inouye.
- $25 million inserted by Mr. Inouye for the Hawaii Federal Health Care
Network. Mr. Inouye's Web site says the health care program "supports applied
research, development and deployment of technology to improve access and
the quality of care to service members, military families and impacted
communities."
Laura Peterson, of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan spending
watchdog, told The Washington Times, "Earmarks like these take money away from
other defense programs that the Defense Department actually wants. While
military health care is certainly a worthwhile venture, it's hard to see how a
program located in Hawaii that openly favors Hawaii-based industries
guarantees [the Department of Defense] the best value for such an exorbitant
price tag."
Mr. Inouye had a total of 35 earmarks worth more than $206 million in the
final bill, and the ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Thad Cochran
of Mississippi, sponsored 48 worth $216 million.
Mr. Cochran defended earmarking as part of Congress' responsibility to
direct government spending.
"I am not ready to cede the power of the purse to any administration," he
told The Times in an e-mail. "It is vested by the Constitution in the
Congress." He added that appropriators had "reviewed the budget request very
carefully, conducted public hearings and reported the appropriation bills that
the committee thinks will serve the public interest."
In addition to the $2.6 billion in earmarks, the bill includes $2.5 billion
for 10 Boeing C-17 cargo planes that the military says it does not need,
and $1.7 billion for an extra DDG-51 destroyer not requested in the
Pentagon's budget proposal.
Mr. Coburn mounted a rear-guard action on the Senate floor to try to
restore some of the money to its original purpose. One proposed amendment
restored $100 million to the accounts by correcting the economic projections used
in the bill to estimate future costs. That passed, but other amendments to
prevent the use of O&M money to fund earmarks were soundly defeated.
Mr. Wheeler said senators had raided O&M accounts to pay for narrowly
targeted projects in every budget since 2002, with dire results for troops on
the front lines.
"Air Force and Navy combat pilots training to deploy are getting about half
of the flying hours they got at the end of the Vietnam War," he wrote in
his analysis. "Army tank crews get less in tank training today than they did
during the low-readiness Clinton years."
Mr. Wheeler told The Times that the figures were drawn from the Pentagon's
budget justification.
Mr. Coburn said in May that the Navy had been forced to curtail at-sea
training and flying because of a shortfall in 2009 O&M funds.
The White House Office of Management and Budget has called on lawmakers to
reverse the cuts.
"These reductions would hurt force readiness and increase stress on
military people and equipment," the agency said.
The House approved its version of the bill in July. Ms. Peterson said that
lawmakers still could restore the funding in the conference that reconciles
the two versions of the bill.
The conference "presents a final opportunity for Congress to take their
hands out of the cookie jar and put some dough where it's really needed -
protecting our fighting men and women," she said.

[Webmaster]

I read about this earlier and it is a disgrace. These folks need to be accountable for this type of crap at the next election.

BTW, here is a link to the full article.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009...-pet-projects/

[Jonathan Randall]

So they get weapons and equipment they don't want and can't use but are great pork-barrel projects for members of congress while pilots whose skill is essential as a first strike line of defence against, say, North Korea or China even, fueling up their rockets for an attack against America don't have ANY money allocated for training for the rest of '09?

I wonder if even 40% of the Defence Budget goes towards military effectiveness (I am including the well being and pay of Armed Forces personnel in that 40% as essential for a professional military)?

The Armed Forces have proven in Iraq that when left alone, they can and do win America's wars. It's time to end the micromanagement of both budget and strategy by Congress - one of the most deeply corrupt institutions in America today.

[Mekugi]

Let's send ACORN to handle it...we can get those cat-houses up and running in Afghanistan and let them fund the war. Better yet, let's send the CEOs that got their bonuses this year onto the front lines as cannon fodder.

The answer to all of this, which will be coming very soon from our beloved Fed bank..."print now, pay later".

[Abbax8]

These museums that enshrine our politicians should be funded ONLY with private money, not tax dollars. If someone thinks Edward Kennedy deserves this recognition, let them hold car washes, sell hoagies or cough up the $$$ themself.

Museums like these funded and supported by our taxes are totally unnecessary.

Peace

Dennis

[Don Roley]

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer – 26 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Internal investigations into the conduct of over two dozen House members were exposed in an extraordinary, Internet-era breach involving the secretive process by which Congress polices lawmaker ethics.
Revelations of the mostly preliminary inquiries by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — also known as the Ethics committee — and a panel that refers cases to it shook the chamber as lawmakers were immersed in a series of scheduled votes Thursday.
The panel announced that it was investigating two California Democrats — Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson — even as its embarrassed leaders took pains to explain that several other lawmakers' names should not have been revealed and they may have done nothing wrong.
The committee said it was investigating whether Waters used her influence to help a bank in which her husband owned stock, and whether the couple benefited as a result. Separately, the panel is looking into whether Richardson failed to disclose required information on her financial disclosure forms and received special treatment from a lender.
Ethics chairwoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., went to the House floor to announce that a confidential weekly report of the committee from July had leaked out in a case of "cyber-hacking."
A committee statement said that its security was breached through "peer to peer file sharing software" used by a junior employee who was working from home. The employee was fired.
The fired employee was allowed to work on the document at home but was responsible for keeping it secure, said a House staff member with knowledge of the events, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss it.
The employee didn't realize that the file saved on a hard drive could be downloaded to another computer using the same file sharing software, according to the staffer. He said there is no indication that the individual accessing the document was looking for ethics committee material.
The July report contains a summary of the committee's work at the time, but Lofgren said no inferences should be made about anyone whose name is mentioned.
The committee typically makes a public announcement about its activities only when it begins an investigation of potential rule-breaking, which is conducted by an investigative subcommittee whose members also are made public.
However, the weekly reports include a summary of the committee's work at an earlier stage, when its members and staff scrutinize lawmakers to see whether an investigation is warranted.
The Washington Post reported in its online edition Thursday that the document was disclosed on a publicly accessible computer network and made available to the newspaper by a source familiar with such networks.
The Post reported that more than 30 lawmakers and a few staff members were under scrutiny, including nearly half the members of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
The previously disclosed inquiry involves lawmakers who steered appropriations to clients of a now-defunct lobbying firm and received campaign contributions from the firm and its clients.
The names included three lawmakers previously identified in the inquiry: the chairman of the defense subcommittee, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.; and Reps. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., and James Moran, D-Va.
The Post said others whose names were in the report included Reps. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., and Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan.
The committee, however, has not announced an investigation of any of these lawmakers.
Waters is the No. 3 Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and chairwoman of its subcommittee on housing. She has been an influential voice in the committee's work to overhaul financial regulations.
Waters came under scrutiny after former Treasury Department officials said she helped arrange a meeting between regulators and executives at OneUnited Bank last year without mentioning her husband's financial ties to the institution.
Her husband, Sidney Williams, holds at least $250,000 in the bank's stock and previously had served on its board. Waters' spokesman, Michael Levin, said Williams was no longer on the board when the meeting was arranged.
Waters has said the National Bankers Association, a trade group, requested the meeting. She defended her role in assisting minority-owned banks in the midst of the nation's financial meltdown and dismissed suggestions she used her influence to steer government aid to the bank.
"I am confident that as the investigation moves forward the panel will discover that there are no facts to support allegations that I have acted improperly," Waters said in a statement.
The committee unanimously voted to establish an investigative subcommittee to gather evidence and determine whether Waters violated standards of conduct.
The committee said it would investigate "alleged communications and activities with, or on behalf of, the National Bankers Association or OneUnited Bank" and "the benefit, if any, Rep. Waters or her husband received as a result."
The committee also voted unanimously to investigate whether Richardson violated House rules, its Code of Conduct or the Ethics in Government Act by failing to disclose property, income and liabilities on her financial disclosure forms.
The investigation also will determine whether Richardson received an impermissible gift or preferential treatment from a lender, "relating to the foreclosure, recission of the foreclosure sale or loan modification agreement" for her Sacramento, Calif., property.
Richardson said she has been subjected to "premature judgments, speculation and baseless distractions that will finally be addressed in a fair, unbiased, bipartisan evaluation of the facts."
"Like 4.3 million Americans in the last year who faced financial problems because of a personal crisis like a divorce, death in the family, unexpected job and living changes and an erroneous property sale, all of which I have experienced in the span of slightly over a year, I have worked to resolve a personal financial situation," she said in a statement.
The committee ended an investigation of Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., and released a report finding no ethical violations. It investigated whether Graves used his position on the House Small Business Committee to invite a longtime friend and business partner of his wife to testify at a committee hearing.

Nearly half of the guys on the defense committee are under investigation for doing things like kickbacks?

Why did this have to be discovered through a security breech?

Hangings too good for them. I think if convicted they should be forced to do patrols in Afghanistan instead of a safe cell in the states.

[Mekugi]

Originally Posted by Don Roley

Nearly half of the guys on the defense committee are under investigation for doing things like kickbacks?

Why did this have to be discovered through a security breech?

Hangings too good for them. I think if convicted they should be forced to do patrols in Afghanistan instead of a safe cell in the states.

Bomb squad and minefield patrol.