Long before I got involved in the Convention of States movement, I felt strongly that the process Congress consistently uses of tying unrelated legislation together in a single bill is unnecessarily complicated and borders on dishonest and deceitful.
There is no doubt people are hurting all over the country and passing a coronavirus relief bill is the right thing to do.
What so many do not know, however, is that the bill they passed includes countless items that have nothing to do with COVID relief.
Let me be clear, I know that the monies referenced below are not really a part of the COVID package, but they were combined with the COVID relief bill and voted on together.
What is the chance that some of these budget items may have been more effectively scrutinized if they had not been combined with a bill focused on relief for the American people?
Here’s just a sample of the additional items included in their most recent bill:
- $85.5 million in assistance to Cambodia.
- $134 million for Burma.
- $130 million for Nepal.
- $453 million for Ukraine.
- $700 million for Sudan.
- $1.3 billion for military spending in Egypt’s.
- $25 million for democracy and gender programs in Pakistan.
- $505 million EACH for Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama.
- $40 million for the Kennedy Center (currently not open for business).
- $1 billion for the Smithsonian (also closed due to COVID).
- $154 million for the National Gallery of Art (it too is closed to the public).
$7 million for reef fish management. - $25 million to combat Asian carp.$2.5 million to count the number of Amberjack fish in the Gulf of Mexico.
- A provision to promote the breeding of fish in federal hatcheries.
- $3 million for poultry production technology.
- $2 million to research downed trees.
- $566 million for construction projects at the FBI.
- And stimulus checks of up to $1,800 for family members of illegal aliens.
Then there is the issue of voting for a bill that is 5,593 pages long just six hours after it is published. How in good conscience can someone elected by the American people vote for a bill they did not write and couldn’t possibly read in the time provided?
As I did my research for this post, I found a reference to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggesting that a bill needs to be passed in order to find out what’s in it.
Given that small businesses all around America are struggling to keep their doors open, many families are struggling to pay their rent and put food on their table. With our national debt currently exceeding $27.5 trillion (that’s $220,130 per taxpayer), I simply can’t understand the spending on the list above!
This is why I’ve committed my volunteer time to the Convention of States project in North Carolina.
Our efforts to call an Article V convention are limited to:
- Term limits for all federal officials,
- Fiscal restraints for the federal government, and
- Limiting their scope and responsibility.
Given these three goals, it is my prayer that an amendment will be proposed and ratified to limit all bills to a single issue. And given the fact that our un-appended Constitution is recorded on just four pages of parchment paper, maybe these bills could be limited to 10 or 25 pages, so that our representatives will have time to read them.
