Like many things in Washington, Thursday’s House vote to provide veterans with new education benefits was hardly simple. The legislation, the work of Virginia’s Sen. Jim Webb, was passed even as the House rejected White House demands for $163 billion to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
By the end of the day, the legislation to which Webb’s initiative was attached was a mass of wriggling interests, many of which had nothing to do with the Pentagon, and some of which were arranged specifically to provide leverage in the fall congressional election.
The legislation ostensibly covered emergency supplemental funding for the Pentagon, an annual sham that hides the cost of the war from the federal budget, and keeps the deficit in check, at least on paper. Into that legislation was introduced a House version of Webb’s bill.
So were higher taxes on the richest Americans, money for the Census, changes in the wartime statute of limitations, and $200 million for international disaster relief. The bill — page upon page of it — is what everyone on Capitol Hill refers to as a Christmas tree. There’s something on it for everyone.
Such bills almost inevitably result in votes that must be parsed for meaning, which demand explanation to make any sense. This one was even more complicated than usual.
U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, for example, voted for the war funding, but voted against the new G.I. bill — which he might’ve supported if Congress had approved the war funding. “There is no way I can justify voting for a supplemental bill that doesn’t have money for the troops in it,” he said Friday.
Rep. Bobby Scott voted against funding the war, which he opposes, but voted for the G.I. bill, which he has sponsored.
The votes by Rep. Thelma Drake were a little harder to explain away, and were almost immediately the subject of e-mails by her political enemies.
Drake voted “present” on funding the war, joining 131 other Republicans in what amounted to a political protest against the politics of the Democratic majority. Then she voted against the G.I. bill, which she has co-sponsored, saying that the legislation needed a clean vote on its merits alone.
That’s unlikely to happen, especially when votes like Thursday’s can be used by ambitious Democrats to make a vulnerable Republican look both hyper-political and insensitive to the troops.
Drake is certainly partisan; her vote on war funding, in which she sided with the GOP leadership, certainly proves that. Her vote on the G.I. bill elevated misgivings about legislative process above overdue benefits for the nation’s veterans.
Still, Drake has few rivals in the House in her dedication to soldiers and sailors. Her vote this week will require dedicated explanation.
Perhaps the saddest thing about votes like Thursday’s, though, is that they’re crafted in a climate of political theater.
The Senate will soon get hold of the subject, and will try for the kind of responsible compromise that pleases nobody and yet does the job.
Meantime, over on the House side of the Capitol, it’s looking to be a futile, frustrating and very long summer.
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