08-01-2008, 09:54 AM
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| Gone Fishin | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Lost On A Lake
Posts: 6,017
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 Senate Vote on More Money for U.N.
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Having failed to stop the irresponsible $50 billion global AIDS bill, Senate conservatives are now being given a second chance. Can they stand up to Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and block the so-called Coburn Omnibus of more irresponsible spending? Reid jokingly named the bill after the Oklahoma Republican Senator, Tom Coburn, who has prevented dozens of excessive federal spending bills from passing the Senate. But Reid is actually titling the bill “Advancing America’s Priorities.”
The 398-page bill, which Reid hopes to bring up this week, is an amalgam of 36 different pieces of legislation, including $12 million for a federal greenhouse facility in Maryland and $24 million for the United Nations. Coburn put “holds” on the bills to prevent them from being passed quickly without adequate debate
Early estimates put the cost of the entire package at over $11 billion.
Through Senate passage of the “Torture Victims Relief Reauthorization” (H.R. 1678), which is one of the bills, Reid hopes to funnel $24 million to the so-called United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture for the operation of foreign treatment centers in such places as the “occupied Palestinian Territories,” Lebanon and Russia.
Some of the U.N. money underwrites the Mandela Institute, which features a “Free Palestine” map on the home page of its website and provides assistance to alleged victims of Israeli aggression and torture.
The greenhouse facility (H.R. 5492) is for the care and feeding of orchids.
Under the unusual Senate procedure that Reid intends to exploit, senators would have to vote on the entire legislation and would not be able to strip away any bills or provisions through amendments.
Over the next several days Coburn will be trying to get his colleagues to join him in demanding that this catch-all “omnibus” legislation be subjected to thorough scrutiny, debate and amendment before being voted on. Among other things, Coburn would like to see the new spending offset by cuts in other programs. That seems like a reasonable request in view of mounting economic and financial difficulties for the government and many families.
| Senate Vote on More Money for U.N.
Open the coffers some more and give more money away , when will they get it that We the Tax Payers are just about tapped out.
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