Chris Shays must have been thinking about this when he floated out his “give me a chairmanship or I quit” demand a few weeks ago. This being the reports that are scuttling many plans to for Republican congresscriters to fund challenger campaigns.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) reported $1.6 million in cash on hand and $4 million in debts as of Aug. 31. The group helps bankroll House campaigns for GOP candidates.

Its counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, reported $22.1 million, more than 10 times its Republican counterpart. 

Campaign finance experts say the latest numbers portend an ill future for GOP candidates, particularly newcomers who haven’t had years in office to build up a war chest.

"If there’s no money in the bank, it’s going to be hard to take seats away from the Democrats," said Massie Ritsch of the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C.-based campaign finance watchdog group.

Things aren’t looking so good for the Senate Republican coffers either, the same report cites $7 million in the bank to the Democrats $20 million. The national parties themselves show a different trend, the RNC has raised $57.3 million to the DNC’s $36.8 million, but that might just be a reflection of presidential politics.

source: the blotter: abcnews by Avni Patel, September 26, 2007

Chalk this report released by SWRPA as stating the obvious. As real estate prices have shot up in the last few years, the affordable factor in housing disappears. And that’s what the report basically says in today’s Advocate. One solution, the report states is to encourage 40 year mortgages:

The study recommends state and local governments pursue density bonuses and other incentives for developers to create affordable housing in those areas.

Other recommendations include SWRPA becoming an affordable housing information clearinghouse in its role as the region’s main intergovernmental planning agency, and urging lenders to create more flexibility in mortgages so home buyers can borrow more within acceptable limits.

Carty urged caution on increasing the percentage of household income that lenders allow to go toward mortgage and housing costs, saying that was part of the problem that has led many less-qualified borrowers into default in the current subprime mortgage crisis that has roiled the stock markets.

“You don’t want people one paycheck away from disaster,” she said.

Instead, lenders should consider 40-year mortgages, which spread out payments for much longer. Buyers don’t build equity as fast, she said, but they can afford much more home in an expensive market.

Why stop at 40? The reality is that home ownership, for a 40 year mortgage is essentially renting. No one in the housing industry will likely admit that.

source: Advocate , , Study cites decline in affordable housing along ‘Gold Coast’, By Doug Dalena, August 22 2007

The Discovery channel started a new show aimed at teaching how it is that things like hockey sticks, get made. In the wee hours of the morning, shows like this play in between the infomercials that try and sell you weight loss pills and how to get rich selling real estate with no money down. Congress, in many ways, resembles this mix of hucksterism and process, with the occasional tabloid drama thrown in.

This week in particular we have the tale of two congresscritters to think about. One congresscritter, now known for stashing $90,000 in his freezer, carefully wrapped in aluminium foil, is facing a 16 count indictment. U.S. Rep. William Jefferson-LA is pleading not guilty, but the FBI has charged him with taking bribes totaling more than $500,000.

The other congresscritter is now known for funding a bridge in Alaska at the cost of $200 million that would serve only 80 residents of a small island. But that reputation will soon be displaced, or perhaps more aptly amplified by his latest transgression. U.S. Rep.Don Young-AK has tacked on to a wholly unrelated bill, a $10 million earmark to build a road in Florida.

The residents and and fellow Republican congressmen didn’t request the money for the road. In fact, according to the NYT, the county voted to twice reject the the money for the road. Which apparently prompted the requester to make a big deal about it, which in turn led to the dots being connected back to a $40,000 campaign contributor. From the NYT:

The Coconut Road money is a boon, however, to Daniel J. Aronoff, a real estate developer who helped raise $40,000 for Mr. Young at the nearby Hyatt Coconut Point hotel days before he introduced the measure.

Mr. Aronoff owns as much as 4,000 acres along Coconut Road. The $10 million in federal money would pay for the first steps to connect the road to Interstate 75, multiplying the value of Mr. Aronoff’s land.

A former aide to Rep. Young, Mark Zachares, has already pleaded guilty to bribery charges involving the lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

This is why bills that congress passes are pages upon pages of unrelated items, often earmarks that are in reality “favors” to the few who pay to play. This practice has got to stop.

source: New York Times: Campaign Funds for Alaskan; Road Aid to Florida, By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, June 7, 2007

Part of the art of blogging is finding things that people want to read about and better yet, talk about. So I often check other blogs for what is news in the blogsphere. Tonight I found a post by Weicker Liker on Connecticut Local Politics (CLP) which linked back to MyLeftNutmeg (MLN). And the comments following that post were less than happy over the post appearing on MyLeftNutmeg, which is an interesting reaction to what seemed to me a fairly interesting post. Roiling debates with people that have differing views is a good thing, but at MLN, it’s batten down the hatches time, and attack the dissenter. For me at least, I prefer the dissent and debate, it’s what makes watching the British Parliament way more interesting than watching C-Span. But I digress … the post for your review:

I noticed that Congressman Joe Courtney has pledged his unconditional support for the proposed $124.1 Billion Supplemental Spending Bill for operations in Iraq & Afghanistan

Through a written statement on Thursday, Courtney trumpeted his endorsement of the spending plan, describing it as one that “honors our troops” and serves as “a balanced compromise.”

To be fair, Courtney gets it right in standing behind our armed forces, giving the resources they need to be effective in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Its also admirable for him to have demonstrated his deep compassion for our injured soliders whose health care system has recently come under fire.

What’s disappointing, however, is Courtney’s blind support for a proposal that contains billions of dollars of our tax dollars for items unrelated to helping our troops. Its also terrible that he chose to support a deadline for withdrawl of our forces. That just gives the enemy a signal to lie low.

This “emergency” spending proposal represents everything that Democrats promised they would not be when they passed their “100 Hour Agenda”

Courtney promised us that he would be a different kind of public servant. He unfortunately appears he is falling in line with the misguided priorities of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The Democratic Caucus seems so bitterly divided over the Iraq War, they need to resort to putting “pork” in spending bills to hold their fractured caucus together.

Unfortunately, supplemental appropriations bills are exempt from spending caps and other budget controls, which makes them magnets for projects and programs that might not stand up to the scrutiny of the budget process.

Below is a list of spending and policy provisions in the supplemental that Courtney did not list in his press release and are unrelated to military operations.

*$500 million for emergency wildfires suppression; the Forest Service currently has $831 million for this purpose;

*$400 million for rural schools;

*$283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract program;

*$120 million to compensate for the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the shrimp and menhaden fishing industries;

*$100 million for citrus assistance (2005 Homeland Livestock Indemnity Program) ;

*$74 million for peanut storage costs;

*$60.4 million for salmon fisheries in the Klamath River region in California and Oregon;

*$50 million for asbestos mitigation at the U.S. Capitol Plant;

*$48 million in salaries and expenses for the Farm Service Agency;

*$35 million for NASA risk mitigation projects in Gulf Coast;

*$25 million for Calfornia spinach growers;

*$25 million for livestock (2005 Hurricane Livestock Indemnity Program);

*$20 million for Emergency Conservation Program for farmland damaged by freezing temperatures;

*$16 million for security upgrades to House of Representatives office buildings;

*$10 million for the International Boundary and Water Commission for the Rio Grande Flood Control System Rehabilitation project;

*$6.4 million for House of Representative’s Salaries and Expenses Account for business continuity and disaster recovery expenses;

*$5 million for losses suffered by aquaculture businesses including breeding, rearing, or transporting live fish as a result of viral hemorrhagic septicemia;

*$4 million for the Office of Women’s Health at the Food and Drug Administration; and

*A minimum wage increase, which is the subject of separate legislation. (source: Weicker Liker )

Okay, Weicker Liker blames Courtney for the long list of earmarks. Probably not the issue here, since the problem is that these long lists of earmarks get tacked on the bills all the time. That’s why I’ve posted on the Read The Bills Act previously.

The New York Times wrote about this practice last fall, and noted:

Lawmakers nonetheless found room in the bill to pay for thousands of requests never sought by the Defense Department. These projects, or earmarks, included $2.1 billion for 10 additional C-17 Globemaster III cargo jets, which the Pentagon is trying to discontinue. They are made by Boeing in the home state of Senator Jim Talent, Republican of Missouri, who is locked in a tight race for re-election.

Lawmakers say earmarks can result in contributions to national security as well as to their districts’ economies. The Defense Department complains that such projects divert billions of dollars from programs the Pentagon considers vital. But both sides agree that earmarks’ merits are hard for Congress and the public to assess.

The number of earmarks has tripled over the last 12 years, straining the ability of Congressional staff members to vet each one. The opaque language of spending bills makes it hard for outsiders to know where the money for each project goes. And it is often impossible to know which lawmaker requested a specific project.

The total cost of earmarks is subject to debate. The House Appropriations Committee said the value of the “member projects” in the spending bill this time was $6.7 billion, down from $7.7 billion in the bill approved last year. The Congressional Research Service estimated the total cost of earmarks in last year’s bill at more than $9 billion. Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group, has identified well over 2,000 earmarks in this year’s bill, roughly on par with last year’s. (source: New York Times)

And then of course the November elections swept in Democratic control of congress. So why still the earmarks abundance? Jonathan Stein at Mother Jones has a possible answer:

Democrats Will End War in Iraq with… Pork?

With John Murtha’s plan to slowly end the war in Iraq mired in controversy and unable to get broad support, and the Democratic leadership’s plan to rewrite the 2002 authorization for war going nowhere, the Democrats have turned to a different tactic.

Loading a war spending bill with pork.

Seriously, that’s the best the Dems, who control both houses of Congress, can do. From today’s Washington Post:

While Democrats try to restrict how President Bush can spend the $100 billion he wants for Iraq, they also hope to load his measure up with $10 billion in add-ons…

Lawmakers from the Great Plains are pressing for about $4 billion in disaster aid for farmers suffering under drought conditions.

The California delegation is demanding help for citrus, avocado and other Central Valley farmers facing $1.2 billion in losses from a devastating January freeze.

And so on and so on. Mind you, the idea here isn’t to pump the bill so full of special interest spending that Bush has to veto it. No, the idea is to take advantage of the fact that Bush and Congressional Republicans would never have the cojones to stop a war spending bill, and thus push through a lot of favorite projects.

What? Seriously, what? Talk about having a tin ear. Didn’t the Democrats ride into Congress promising to end the march of bills swollen on earmarks and Republican pork barrel projects? Are they seriously proposing this right now?

There’s no good way to ferret out the earmarkers, and whether the congresscritters know what they are ultimately voting for. The Read The Bills Act is a good place to start.
Source: Mother Jones, Democrats Will End War in Iraq with… Pork?, by Johnathan Stein, March 3, 2007

source: New York Times, Earmarks Find Way Into Spending Bill, By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, September 30, 2006