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December 19, 2003/Kislev 24 5764, Vol. 56, No. 13
Arizona delegation split on spending bill
BARRY COHEN
Editor
Through the omnibus bill - the $328 billion spending bill to cover the 2004 budget - the House of Representatives agreed to allocate almost $2.15 billion to the state of Israel. On Dec. 8, the House passed the legislation, 242-176.
Half of Arizona's delegation - John Shadegg (R- Phoenix), Trent Franks (R-Glendale), Jeff Flake (R-Mesa) and Raul Grijalva (D-Tucson) - voted against it. However, they explain that through their "no" votes, they were not making an anti-Israel statement, but rather voting against the bill's content and how it was passed on the House floor.
Shadegg said he was opposed "to the tens of millions of dollars of pork in this bill."
"We cannot continue down that path and at the same time maintain the kind of fiscal discipline that is necessary to run the nation," he added.
This "pork," or earmarks, are the "pet projects" of individual members, he explained.
"When I was first elected to Congress in 1994, there were virtually no earmarks," said Shadegg. In the current omnibus bill, there are more than 10,000 individual earmarks, he said.
Through all these special projects, "we've bought everybody off," said Flake.
"Very few of us didn't have some kind of project for our home districts, be it a museum, funding for a Hall of Fame or a swimming pool," he noted. "That's how Washing-ton tends to work. You buy off enough people with projects like that, and then you can pass just about anything."
Grijalva said one of the reasons he voted against the bill was because House members had less than 24 hours to review the legislation before voting on it.
During the year, the House failed to address many separate appropriations bills, he said. With the omnibus bill, "all of them were lumped together at the last minute," he noted.
Grijalva said there was not enough time to discuss the details of the bill on the House floor or to offer alternatives. Additionally, he was opposed to the content of the omnibus bill. It did not fully fund the "No Child Left Behind" legislation, he said, and "lessened (environmental) regulations, opening up a lot of national parks to further development."
There was also not enough funding in Third World countries to address edu-cation, health and AIDS treatments, he said.
According to Shadegg and Franks, after confirming that the legislation would pass, they decided to cast protest votes against the bill.
"Since I knew it was going to pass, to make a statement against some of the excessive spending in it, I thought (voting 'no') was the right thing to do," said Franks.
However, Franks, Shadegg and Grijalva stressed their support for the bill's funding for Israel.
"I have always been solidly on record as being strongly in favor of aid to Israel for a lot of reasons," said Franks, including the fact that Israel is a democracy and "the only true ally" of the United States in the Middle East.
"Had the funding for Israel been in jeopardy, I would not have cast that protest vote," said Shadegg.
If the funding for Israel had been "a stand-alone bill, I would have voted 'yes,' " noted Grijalva.
Rick Renzi (R-Flagstaff), Ed Pastor (D- Phoenix), J.D. Hayworth (R-Scottsdale) and Jim Kolbe (R-Tucson) voted in favor of the spending bill.
The Senate will vote on its version of the omnibus spending bill in early 2004.
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