Dana Milbank: Did GOP read bill?

[TexasTowelie]

Read the bill! This was a rallying cry of the tea party in 2010 and of Republicans bitter about a 906-page healthcare law that few proponents had read.

Republicans made a “read the bill” pledge and vowed that they would put the text of bills online at least 72 hours before votes. But a very different Republican Party rushed a massive spending bill through the House last week — just 44 hours after it was posted.

The bill was 1,582 pages and accompanying explanatory statements added another 1,278, which means lawmakers had less than a minute to read each page, even if they didn’t sleep.

This was an ugly and gargantuan $1.1 trillion spending bill, cutting vital programs while sending goodies to well-connected industries. And yet there was some good news in the swift and easy passage through the House, followed quickly by the Senate and signed Friday by President Barack Obama: It means business-as-usual is returning to the Capitol.

More at http://www.themonitor.com/opinion/columnists/article_725fa61e-82f2-11e3-b3a9-001a4bcf6878.html .

[leftyohiolib]

1. typical republican hypocrisy

[pscot]

2. A few of the sordid details

The bill gives at least $62 million, and possibly as much as $119 million, to the United States Enrichment Corp., a government spinoff that last month announced plans to file for bankruptcy.

— The bill blocks the Navy from retiring seven cruisers and two amphibious ships. It gave the Pentagon $950 million more than it wanted for one class of attack submarines. But the measure denied the Pentagon $8 million it sought to study more base closures.

— The bill awards the Pentagon $666 million to study illnesses and afflictions ranging from Lou Gehrig’s disease to breast cancer — activities not closely related to war-fighting.

— The bill gives the oil and nuclear industries a bonanza: $154 million more than the Department of Energy requested for nuclear energy and $141 million more than requested for fossil-fuel development, despite enormous oil profits.

— The bill provides more than $44 million for the Army Corps of Engineers that the administration had not requested. Lawmakers have been issuing press releases bragging about pet projects that are earmarks in everything but name.

[Frustratedlady]

3. They have worked so little, they may have forgotten how to read...

[jwirr]

4. While it cuts social safety net programs and climate change efforts. If this bunch of hippocrits

live to see the results of this kind of governing I hope they are in the worst of it.