Free Republic

WASHINGTON - In Washington, it pays to read the fine print. The Iraq funding bill is a perfect example, studded with provisions to help dairy farmers, airlines, salmon fisherman and rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging. And that's just scratching the surface. Take dairy farmers, for example. They're receiving $1.2 billion in help in the Iraq bill as lawmakers clear the way to renew a subsidy program aimed at smaller milk producers. Then there are airlines like Continental and American, who won a last-minute battle with the White House over a plan that would allow them to together...

WASHINGTON - In grudging concessions to President Bush, Democrats intend to draft an Iraq war-funding bill without a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and shorn of billions of dollars in spending on domestic programs, officials said Monday. The legislation would include the first federal minimum wage increase in more than a decade, a top priority for the Democrats who took control of Congress in January, the officials added. While details remain subject to change, the measure is designed to close the books by Friday on a bruising veto fight between Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress over the war....

Last Friday the Democrats in the House of Representatives passed the US Troop Readiness, Veteran's Health and Iraq Accountability Act which continues temporary funding for the war against Jihad in Iraq, and then mandates that the US concede defeat, retreat ("redeploy"), tacitly surrender to Al Qaeda, and abandon Iraq to its fate, whatever that is, no later than September 2008. Nancy Pelosi called it "a historic moment for our party," but forgot to add that it was the historic moment when Democrat Party raised the white flag, when Congressional Democrats voted to become the official party of Defeat, Retreat, and...

Analysis of the latest Census data indicates Texas’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers more than $4.7 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to more than $3.7 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden amounts to about $725 per Texas household headed by a native-born resident. This analysis looks specifically at the costs to the state for education, health care and incarceration resulting from illegal immigration. These three are the largest cost areas, and they are the same three...