At first blush, the idea that lawmakers would be restricted in offering amendments to yesterday’s $52 billion supplemental spending bill for Katrina relief and rebuilding efforts is not necessarily awful. In general, amendments can serve to make a bill better, but in this case, a reasonable argument could be made that no one wanted to see lawmakers piling on pork spending for pet projects that have nothing to do with the Gulf Coast.
There were, however, two problems with the way Republican leaders passed the bill yesterday. First, as Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) noted, lawmakers were hardly allowed to read and/or debate the legislation.
“We owe them better than to silence the voice of the American people on this floor. We owe America better than to intentionally prevent this body from crafting the very best Hurricane recovery legislation it can by refusing to allow any amendments to be offered.
“All because this leadership doesn’t want to lose a vote, or have their ideas challenged, or suffer the indignity of disagreement in the people’s house.”
Second, and perhaps more importantly, GOP leaders didn’t want rank-and-file members mucking up the legislation with non-Katrina measures — because they were busy doing that themselves.
I am writing about my very serious concerns with a provision in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill for Hurricane Katrina. A substantive provision was inserted in the bill, at the request of the Administration, which would raise the “micro-purchase” threshold from $15,000 to $250,000 for purchases relating to relief and recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
Raising this threshold would mean that any federal employee with a government-issued credit card could buy up to a $250,000 in goods or services in a single purchase. There would be no limit to the number of such purchases. This is an unwise provision that could lead to contract abuse and extensive waste, fraud, and abuse
You think?