House Republicans Reject Call to Study Budget Bill Disparities

[Judi Lynn]

House Republicans Reject Call to Study Budget Bill Disparities
By CARL HULSE
Published: February 17, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — House Republicans rejected a call on Thursday for an inquiry into the enactment of a major spending-cut bill that Democrats say is invalid, as a simmering partisan feud over Congressional procedure boiled over.

House members voted 219 to 187 along strict party lines to block a request by Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, for an ethics investigation into how the House and Senate ended up approving slightly different versions of legislation signed by President Bush on Feb. 8.

Democrats and others say the legislation, which is intended to save $39 billion over five years, is constitutionally flawed. They say Republican leaders were aware of the difference in the two versions but made no effort to fix it to avoid further votes on a measure that barely passed the House and required a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Dick Cheney in the Senate.

"This could be a small clerical error which they have turned into a huge constitutional issue because they don't want to level with the American people," Ms. Pelosi said.
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/politics/17spend.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[rodeodance]

1. This is a sick sick sick house

[Cobalt Violet]

2. Repukes sure do hate the constitution.

They're all guilty of treason.

[Trillo]

3. An Executive Order budget bill?

From the OP's link:

"It is basic Constitutional Law 101," said Mr. Zeigler, who was unhappy with some Medicaid provisions of the bill. "The same bill must pass the House and the Senate and be signed by the president. Period."

[UpInArms]

4. Meanwhile: Treasury chief declines to rule out 50-year bond

Looks like this debt is only going to spread out and destroy the futures of several more generations :(

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-02-17T165015Z_01_N17305658_RTRIDST_0_ECONOMY-SNOW-BOND.XML

CHICAGO, Feb 17 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow on Friday declined to comment on whether the Treasury Department planned to issue a 50-year bond but did not rule out taking such a step.

Snow raised eyebrows in debt markets on Thursday by responding to questions in a television interview, and later from reporters, about the possibility of a 50-year bond by saying he could "never say never on anything."

<snip>

"But what I was saying is we're always looking at all options. That's what you get paid to do when you are looking at the domestic finances of the United States. I didn't rule anything in or anything out, but we wouldn't be fulfilling our obligations if we weren't looking at all the options we might want to pursue," Snow said.

"Our objective here is to issue Treasuries in such a way that minimizes the long-term cost of issuance to taxpayers."

...more a link...

:(

[WCGreen]

6. One of the reasons Clinton was able to slash the debt

was by getting out of the 30 year bond cycle...

30 year bonds sold during times of high inflation, the early eighties, were eating away at the budget with inflated interest rates...

They retired those bonds by issuing shorter term bonds to minimize the out lying interest payments...

Think of it as refinancing your house at a cheaper rate and shorter time frame...

But now, these clowns are doing it half ass backward....

Think of it like this.... You almost have your whole mortgage paid for and then decide to go deeper in debt than you were before cause you want to spend your capital NOW.... And you spend it on booze, cocaine and wild women.....

[Moderator]

5. Kick

[HuffleClaw]

7. "In producing the formal bill after the Senate vote...

...a Senate clerk changed both reimbursement periods to 36 months. The House then approved that bill. After the vote, a clerk than returned the language to the original 36 months and 13 months."

ok, so they get some clerk to deliberately alter the bill and have bush approve it? then they claim it was a 'procedural error'? pretty damn scary that they'd resort to such blatant trickery and even scarier they do so with impunity.