Supplemental Appropriation Act of 2009 Passed Senate

The Senate overwhelmingly (91-5) passed the Supplemental Appropriation Act of 2009 (H.R. 2346) without hardly any objection and without any change. The war funding bill, which has caught some public attention because it includes so-called "cash for clunkers" auto purchase subsidy program ($1 billion) and IMF funding ($7.6 billion additional quota, up to $116 billion loan).

Aside from these and money that actually goes to the U.S. military, there are a whole lot that are going to foreign countries. Middle East and Central Asia get the bulk, but Burma and Mexico also get a nice chunk:

$921,500,000, for worldwide security upgrades, acquisition, and construction as authorized, and shall be made available for secure diplomatic facilities and housing for United States mission staff in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and for mobile mail screening units.
$150,000,000 for ‘Global Health and Child Survival’
$200,000,000 may be made available for cash transfer assistance to the Palestinian Authority
$10,000,000 may be made available for humanitarian assistance in Burma
$242,000,000 shall be available for assistance for Georgia
$30,000,000 may be made available for assistance for the Kyrgyz Republic
$487,500,000 for ‘International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement'
$390,000,000 for ‘Migration and Refugee Assistance’
$260,000,000 shall be made available for assistance for the Mexican Navy
$150,000,000 shall be made available for assistance for Jordan
$555,000,000, shall be available for grants only for Israel
$260,000,000 shall be made available for grants only for Egypt
$69,000,000 may be made available for assistance for Lebanon
$700,000,000. counterinsurgency activities in Pakistan
$150,000,000 shall be made available to support programs that directly address the needs of Afghan women and girls

The provision that would have blocked the release of the photographs allegedly showing detainee abuse in the US custody had been dropped during the negotiation in the House, which had a much closer vote (226-202).

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$1 Billion Makeover of U.S. Diplomatic Missions in Af-Pak

Remember the former president Bush? Remember his extravagant fortress called the U.S. embassy in Baghdad?

We will have another one or two, in case you missed the news. This time in Af-Pak.

US to spend $1 billion on embassy expansions in Pakistan, Afghanistan (5/28/09 Christian Science Monitor)

"The US is embarking on a $1 billion crash program to expand its diplomatic presence in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, another sign that the Obama administration is making a costly, long-term commitment to war-torn South Asia, US officials said Wednesday.

"The White House has asked Congress for – and seems likely to receive – $736 million to build a new US embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for US government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.

"The scale of the projects rivals the giant US Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million."

In addition, in Peshawar the U.S. government is negotiating to buy up a 5-star hotel to serve as the consulate.

"In Kabul, the US government is negotiating an $87 million purchase of a 30- to 40-acre parcel of land to expand the embassy. The Senate version of the appropriations bill omits all but $10 million of those funds."

You may also recall that President Obama recently appointed Lt. General McChrystal as new Afghan commander. Lt. General McChrystal was a black-op guy in Iraq. The Washington Post article called him and his guys as "manhunters".

Af-Pak is the place to be, it seems. At least that's where the money is going.

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War Bill H.R. 2346 Is Set To Be Approved, After All

Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R. 2346) is set to be approved, after negotiations between House and Senate and the White House resulted in the "compromise".

U.S. Lawmakers to Vote on $106 Billion War Measure
(6/12/09 Bloomberg):

"U.S. lawmakers are set to approve a $106 billion war-spending bill after President Barack Obama said he would use “every legal and administrative remedy available” to block the release of photos of troops abusing detainees."

There goes Freedom of Information, and that was the position of the administration to begin with.

"Lawmakers crafting the war-spending bill also defeated an attempt to remove from it a “cash for clunkers” provision offering as much as $4,500 to those trading in cars for more fuel-efficient models.

"Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, estimated the provision would result in 250,000 cars being traded in. It would cost taxpayers $1 billion."

So they managed to put this back in, just like they wanted from the beginning. And this applies only to new car purchase, and as long as the new car's fuel efficiency is better than your old car that's OK. It would cost only $1 billion, and taxpayers are going to pay for it anyway. A chump change.

By the way, Mr. Durbin apparently made some shrewed investment decision back in September 2008 after he was in discussions with Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke (sorry, Dr. Bernanke) along with his Congressional colleagues, before the market started to crash in earnest in late September-early October. On September 19, the day he sold his mutual fund holdings, Dow had a huge up-day; it ended at 11,388. Then he put his money on Berkshire Hathaway by October 2, which shows there is some justice left in the world. (Didn't Martha Stewart have to go to prison for insider trading?)

"The bill also will approve an Obama request for $108 billion in aid, mostly in the form of a line of credit, to the International Monetary Fund to help it deal with the global recession. Lawmakers appropriated $5 billion to secure the aid."

Uh huh. It also happens to come with over $100 billion loan guarantee to IMF.

If IMF thing is in, World Bank thing should be in, too. To fight poverty in the world. Oh I see. It's a war. War against poverty. Only $4 billion. Big deal, right?

What compromise? It sure looks like the administration got everything they wanted. Here's my post when the bill was still in negotiation. The bill will also authorize Treasury Secretary Geithner to instruct IMF to sell part of IMF's gold. China must be laughing and saying "Oh, thank you so much, Timmy". Tim will also get to beat up on various development banks to adopt green gas accounting.

I don't think the U.S. economy will have much chance of surviving, not to mention thriving, under the government like this. Today's stock market agrees with me. It is selling off all day, just quietly selling off.

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Extras in War Bill H.R.2346

Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R. 2346), otherwise widely referred to as "war funding bill", has already passed the House and the Senate, and currently is in a negotiation phase to reconcile the differences between the House version and the Senate version.

Not just the amount, which was originally $90 billion, has increased to over $100 billion as the bill went through Congress, but it seems to have acquired quite a lot of "extras" attached to the bill that are getting some media attention (such as here, and here).

So, after finally obtaining the bill number from someone's blog, I went to the Library of Congress THOMAS to take a peek at the text of the bill and see what are the extras. (Here's the link for THOMAS, but the system times you out so often you have to keep entering the search query. This link won't time you out but doesn't reflect the provisions that are struck out.)

Department of Commerce
$40 million economic development assistance program

Department of Justice
Salaries and expense money for various departments

Executive Office of the President and Fund Appropriated to the President
$1.5 billion for pandemic preparedness and response including swine flu

Judiciary, SEC
Salaries and expense

Department of Homeland Security
Salaries and expenses for US Customs, Immigration, Coast Guard

FEMA
$30 million for Operation Stonegarden [Doesn't this sound like there's something sinister in the background? Why is a disaster-relief agency engaged in border patrol? Here's more on this FEMA operation.]

Department of Health and Human Services
$82 million for refugee and entrant assistance

Legislative Branch
$72 million for Capitol Police

Department of State
$655 million for worldwide security protection

Bilateral Economic Assistance
$2.8 billion for economic support fund for Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Congo (bulk of it is for Afghanistan)

General Provisions
$285 million for global financial crisis to help developing countries [How could we help when our house is in disorder?]
$3.7 billion for International Development Association [That's part of World Bank to combat poverty in the world.]
$356 million for debt relief under International Development Association

Climate change mitigation and greenhouse gas accounting
Treasury Secretary to make sure that multilateral development banks adopt and implement greenhouse gas accounting

Additional assistance to Georgia
$42 million

Other Matters
Increase IMF quota by 4.9 billion SDR (= $7.6 billion; US$1 is SDR 0.645799)
loan to IMF up to 75 billion SDR (=$116 billion)
Authorize Treasury Secretary to instruct the US executive director of the Fund to sell up to 12,965,649 ounces (367 metric tons or 405 short tons) of the Fund's gold (that would result in $12 billion proceeds)

Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009
A covered record (a photograph that was taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 and duly certified by Secretary of Defense) shall not be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

As the bill is in the negotiation stage, many provisions are being struck out. The above information is likely to change; some of it may be already obsolete, while new provisions may be being added.

The contention seems to be IMF and Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act. Many lawmakers find it hard to approve both.

Neither is related to supplemental appropriation for wars, is it?

Nor greenhouse gas accounting, nor salaries at SEC.

(Business is indeed as usual on Capitol Hill. Don't they know we are broke?)

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