Spending political capital beyond their means

Congress passed legislation Saturday giving two committee chairman and their assistants access to income tax returns without regard to privacy protections, but not before red-faced Republicans said the measure was a mistake and would be swiftly repealed.

[...]

Questioned sharply by fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, Stevens pleaded with the Senate to approve the overall spending bill despite the tax returns language.

But Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, said that wasn't good enough. "It becomes the law of the land on the signature of the president of the United States. That's wrong."

Conrad said the measure's presence in the spending bill was symptomatic of a broader problem -- Congress writing legislation hundreds of pages long and then giving lawmakers only a few hours to review it before having to vote on it.

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Some Democrats didn't accept the assertion that the provision was a mistake and demanded an investigation.

"We weren't born yesterday, we didn't come down with the first snow," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. "This isn't poorly thought out, this was very deliberately thought out and it was done in the dead of night."

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Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the measure will "bring us back to the doorstep to the days of President Nixon, President Truman and other dark days in our history when taxpayer information was used against political enemies."

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CNN article

And that's the point, isn't it?

Stevens, who repeatedly apologized for what he characterized as an error, took offense at Conrad's statement. "It's contrary to anything that I have seen happen in more than 30 years on this committee," he said.

Pounding on his desk, Stevens said he had given his word and so had Young that neither would use the authority to require the IRS to turn over individual or corporate tax returns to them. "I would hope that the Senate would take my word. I don't think I have ever broken my word to any member of the Senate."

"... Do I have to get down on my knees and beg," he said.

Could the circus get any more outrageous? I shouldn't ask. I'm afraid we'll find out. These freaks are desperate. And totally unhinged.

Josh Marshall has some information on the situation:

It's worth noting that the "Istook Amendment" (see the last post about the technical issue of whether it's an 'amendment' or a 'provision') was discovered in the appropriations bill by a staffer for North Dakota's Kent Conrad. And Conrad is right at the top of the list of senators the GOP is going to try to knock out in 2006.

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The Republicans are acting like it was all an innocent mistake. And it seems clear that there are Republican senators who didn't know anytihng about it and are pissed. But clearly this was no accident, unless provisions have started to write themselves.

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Apparently the provision was placed into the bill at the request of Rep. Istook of Oklahoma. (post)

"I have no earthly idea how it got in there," Frist said on CBS's "Face The Nation." "Nobody is going to defend this."

CNN article

No idea. Well, you might start with Mr. Stevens. He seems awfully agitated about not getting the bill passed.

"If there is ever a graphic example of the broken system that we now have, that certainly has to be it," the Arizona Republican said on NBC's "Meet The Press." "How many other provisions didn't we find in that 1,000-page bill?"

And as I have questioned again and again, why on earth is it legal to tack totally unrelated issues onto bills? This was on a spending bill.

After the House passed the spending bill, Democratic Senate staffers discovered that it contained a provision allowing the chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees, or their agents, to examine the tax returns of any American.

The two lawmakers who would have gained that power -- Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, and Rep. Bill Young, a Florida Republican -- both said they wouldn't use it, and the Senate approved a resolution deleting the language.

Trust us. Have we ever misled you before? Give us that power, but we have no intention of using it. Oh, and did we mention that we intended to tell you it was in there, but it just slipped our minds.

Frist said he did not know who was responsible for inserting the language, "but, obviously, somebody is going to know, and accountability will be carried out."

I'm sure. Just like those Abu Ghraib torturers are being brought to justice. Just like somebody is being held accountable for the leaking of an undercover CIA agent's name.

Bunch of criminals.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

P.S. Today's random Twain quote is very appropo...

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. --Mark Twain