Where The Rubber Meets The Road (12/21/07)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.

(By the way, it seems that the Inky is now going to save space by not mentioning the names of our elected representatives unless they vote no or don't show up for a vote - must be a cost-cutting measure.)

House

Intelligence budget: In a 222-199 vote, the House approved the conference report on an estimated $48 billion fiscal 2008 budget for the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

A yes vote was to pass HR 2082.

All Philadelphia-area Democrats voted yes. All area Republicans voted no.

More information is available here.

Defense budget: The House approved, 370-49, the conference report on a bill authorizing a $696.3 billion military budget for fiscal 2008, including nearly $190 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A yes vote was to pass HR 1585.

All Philadelphia-area representatives voted for the bill, except Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), who voted no.

More information is available here on this also, including Patrick Murphy’s call for an investigation into contractor abuses in Iraq, echoing calls from fellow Rep. Louise Slaughter.

Terrorism insurance: In a 303-116 vote, the House sent the Senate a bill renewing for seven years a program of taxpayer backing to help the insurance industry meet the catastrophic costs of any future terrorist attacks.

A yes vote was to pass HR 4299.

All Philadelphia-area representatives voted for the bill, except Michael Castle (R., Del.) and Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), who voted no.

Alternative minimum tax: In a 226-193 vote, the House sent the Senate a bill to exempt about 21 million middle-income households from the alternative minimum tax this year.

A yes vote was to pass HR 4351.

All Philadelphia-area Democrats voted yes. All area Republicans voted no.

I’m going to jump ahead to this week a bit and note here that Patrick Murphy voted against this when it was finalized without offsetting charges against hedge fund and private equity fund managers (increasing their tax liability) that would pay for the AMT cut (Murphy voted for the two versions of this bill with the offsetting charges).

The bill passed anyway, though I respect the principle behind Murphy’s decision (yet another victory for the “pay no price, bear no burden,” crowd, and I’m certainly not referring to Patrick here by any means).

Senate

Home mortgages: In a 93-1 vote, the Senate passed a bill granting the Federal Housing Administration new authority to stimulate the residential housing market, including measures to help holders of shaky subprime mortgages avert default by shifting to FHA-insured loans.

A yes vote was to pass S 2338.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted yes, except Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.), who did not vote.

Though I’m not thrilled with picking up additional liability from the fallout of “Big Shitpile,” to quote Atrios, I have to admit that this makes sense.

Also, I thought this was an interesting post on this subject (speaking of “the devil” – and remember that “MBNA Joe Biden” signed off on the fraud Bankruptcy Bill).

New energy policies: In a 86-8 vote, the Senate sent the House a bill that would raise vehicle mileage requirements by 40 percent by 2020. The vote occurred after the bill was stripped of provisions that sought to raise taxes on oil companies and require utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

A yes vote was to pass HR 6.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted yes, except Biden, who did not vote.

An utter fraud in the sense that oil companies won't be touched (as noted here).

Update 12/26/07: Will Bunch has a great post about what we should do in response, as well as Bushco's fight against California's attempt to regulate greenhouse gases (here - Stephen Johnson of the EPA is nothing but a puppet, but that's par for the foul course; and by the way, in case you have any doubt as to whether or not Philly.com has turned into "freeper central," get a load of Bunch's comments).

2008 defense budget: In a 90-1 vote, the Senate sent President Bush the conference report on a bill (HR 1585) authorizing a $696.3 billion military budget for fiscal 2008, including nearly $190 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A yes vote was to approve the conference report.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted yes, except Biden, who did not vote.

This bill of course was stripped of any kind of a withdrawal timetable for our troops, and as I read about this, I couldn’t help but wonder about the few Repugs who actually made noise about starting to bring our people home and how the al-Maliki government in Iraq was approaching “a crucial point” or whatever and was looking at a “three-to-six-month” window or whatever…and how all of that was utter crap just to keep us diverted while the war dragged on ad nauseum.

And I thought of this story about Repug Sen. John Warner of Virginia and how he said in August that our people should be starting to come home by no later than right about now. And I thought of how that was utter crap also.

Five-year farm bill: The Senate passed, 79-14, a five-year, $288 billion farm bill (HR 2419) that extends the current system of subsidies for growers of major crops.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted yes, except Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), who voted no, and Biden, who did not vote.

This week, the House took up bills on energy and fiscal 2008 appropriations. The Senate debated the same budget bill, the 2008 intelligence budget, and a bill on the alternative minimum tax.

And by the way, I thought this was a good time to note that the Senate Repugs set a record of 62 cloture votes in this session, as Bernie Sanders of Vermont notes here.