This one's for you, "None"
A frequent commenter by the name of "None" has repeatedly attempted to pre-emptively lay blame on Lane Evans for any loss or cutbacks due to the BRAC decision on the fate of the R.I. Arsenal, citing his votes against wasteful military spending and other stats, and suggesting that Evans has done nothing to preserve the Arsenal. The following piece from the Dispatch/Argus knocks a big hole in his assertions.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed an $82 billion Iraq war supplemental spending bill that preserves $4.6 million in money to the Rock Island Arsenal.Oooops Mr. None. Anything to say?
The bill is the result of a House-Senate conference, and heads now to the Senate, where it likely will be voted on next week.
The bill includes language that will force the Army to allocate $12.5 million in funds for the Arsenal that originally were part of the 2005 defense appropriations act. The money comes from the Army's Industrial Mobilization Capacity account, which covers the costs of maintaining machines and space not in active use. The allocation, in turn, reduces overhead costs and helps the Arsenal better compete for projects.
Earlier this year, the Army informed the Arsenal that higher workload reduced the need for the money to $7.9 million.
Lawmakers from the Illinois and Iowa delegations responded by putting language in the supplemental bill that enforced the spending of the full amount, and limited it to Rock Island.
Reps. Lane Evans, D-Rock Island, and Jim Nussle, R-Manchester, Iowa, voted for the bill. It passed on a 368-58 roll call vote.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 5/06/2005
2 comments
2 Comments:
None... you're a good man. Yes, it's true, and I did realize it, that this single vote does not a record make. However, I feel that it's a bit disingenous as well to toss out a lifetime vote number which is supposedly the number of Evans votes against military spending.
First off, Lanes career is a long one. Any numbers are going to be large over that time span.
Secondly, I don't like this tactic of characterizing votes overly broadly. Bush did this to Kerry relentlessly and it was extremely dishonest (including Kerry votes to not cut taxes as votes to raise taxes, for instance)
This smear was also used on Kerry, suggesting that he'd voted to "decimate" funding for intelligence, etc. But when the facts were examined, it was shown that even Dick Cheney had voted with Kerry on some of the cost cutting measures.
Likewise, if Evans votes were given even a rudimentary going over, it would likely show that most if not all of the votes were concensus votes, and others may show that they were votes against wasteful pork-barrel projects wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on failed and unneeded projects.
In other words, given the huge amount of bills proposing to spend literally billions of dollars for every goofy project under the sun in order to grap a piece of that fat government hand out, any responsible legislature SHOULD have many votes on his record that could be said to be "anti-military spending." Hell, the military already gets so much of our GNP it's not even funny, and is spending money at a mind-blowing rate. By bashing Evans for all of his supposed "anti-military spending" votes, are you suggesting that a "good" legislator should just rubber stamp every scheme that comes down the pike?
If you want to be more relevant in your argument, you'd research how Lane has voted on measures that directly affected the R.I. Arsenal. After all, isn't that what you're talking about?
Apples to apples, and all that, right?
And HeadUsher... judging from your excellent primer in campaign PR puffery, which I must admit, is a classic and hilarious... I gotta ask, why aim so low for Jacobs? Obviously from your many comments, Jacobs is far more suited to become President of the United States, as we've never before seen a more attractive, accomplished, beloved by all, and well-financed politician since... I don't know, probably ever. Next to Jacobs, Lincoln was a piker. If we sent Mike to the White House, Illinois would surely become the "Land of Jacobs." (and the only reason I'm suggesting the White House is because there's not currently a "King of the World" position.)
But I gotta ask, since you've made it so clear that your Mike is the obvious choice for Evans' U.S. House seat, then who, if anyone, would be even remotely capable of filling Jacobs' shoes in the State Senate?
I mean, to listen to you, who would be foolish or pretentious enough to even try to follow such a beloved stateman of Mike Jacobs collosal stature? Anyone would seem insect-like by comparison. ;-)
Would that mean that Boland gets the Senate seat? (this'll get 'em going. hee hee)
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