Congrssional Halloween Costumes

It must be Halloween because Nebraska's Republican Congressmen Jeff Fortenberry and Tom Osborne have been playing dress-up for the local press. In this magical time of year when children become ghosts, goblins, and fairy princesses, Fortenberry and Osborne are trying to make-believe that they have the ounce of spine or independence to stand-up to their party masters and do what's right for Nebraska, particularly its rural communities.

Frankly, they're not fooling anyone.

The Omaha World-Herald reports:

Nebraska GOP Reps. Tom Osborne and Jeff Fortenberry managed to soften the budget-cutting blow when they recently met face-to-face with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and delivered an ultimatum, Osborne said.

"We were prepared to vote no," Osborne said Friday. "We got the best deal we could."

The House and Senate are working on budget-cutting bills that seek savings of $35 billion to help pay for hurricane relief. Agriculture spending in the House bill was reduced from $4.2 billion to $3.7 billion in proposed cuts.

Osborne and Fortenberry, members of the House Agriculture Committee, said the change they negotiated reduced farmers' subsidy cuts from 3 percent to 1 percent. That would cost the average Nebraska farm $200 a year in lost federal subsidies, Osborne said.

Besides subsidies, cuts are proposed for conservation and other rural development programs.

The Senate is working on a bill proposing $3 billion in cuts. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, has complained that agriculture programs are being cut more than is fair compared with other federal spending.

They got the best deal they could? They were prepared to defy Hastert and Tom DeLay? Who are they kidding?

The average subsidy cut is not what's at issue here. The question, as always, is WHO faces these cuts. It certainly should not be the family farmer, not while large agricultural congrlomerates are still receiving unlimited payments. And, what of this bill's cuts to the food stamp program...or is that tucked away in some other Republican travesty against working-class and rural families?

Frankly, this article is a press release - nothing more - a form letter from the Republican leadership to provide some political cover to their blindly loyal footsoldiers in the Midwest. I expect most every Congressional hyper-partisan who is supposed to be representing rural America - not the Republican Party - is doing the same song and dance about having done what they could....everything, that is, but voting "NO" as they damn well should.

This is the cost of Nebraska voters' allegiance to the Republican party. They will continue to be taken for granted - their interests neglected and their goodwill exploited. The trick's on us. Happy Halloween!