The debt ceiling/government shutdown circus appears to be winging down in Washington, but it is not leaving town without a last, revolting act:
The McConnell-Reid bill not only funds Obamacare and suspends the debt limit, it ALSO includes a provision in Section 123 that increases the authorization for the Olmsted Lock in Kentucky from $775 million to nearly $3 billion.
It’s the Kentucky Kickback.
In exchange for funding Obamacare and raising the debt limit, Mitch McConnell has secured a $2 billion earmark.
Naturally, Sen. McConnell denies any such thing happened:
McConnell’s office told The Hill on Wednesday evening that the senator was not responsible for the dam funding provision, instead referring to the White House and leaders of the Senate committee that is responsible for appropriations.
“The process is that OMB (the White House) submits a list which is scrubbed by chair and ranker (Feinstein/Alexander) of each subcommmittee (energy and water in this case),” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, in an email. “We are not OMB or the chair/ranking member of the subcommittee.”
So it was a group of nameless, faceless somebodies who inserted the earmark. Or not:
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said he was the one who requested the funding provision, and argued it was needed to ensure $160 million in contracts are not cancelled by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Which makes it all better.
It also shows the old ways of making sausage are alive and well on Capitol Hill.
