Draining the Swamp, or Trough

For context, read the post below.

Some things this DEMOCRATS INCREASED SPENDING LAW will help to do:

Require lawmakers to disclose their personal interest in the piggish "earmarks" that have given the Bush administration some of its finest moments: like Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere. That lost its funding after Jon Stewart noticed it, but there are many, many others.

Though it's possibly coincidental, the law also provides a way to end Bush's "top-two-percent" tax cuts.

On the downside, the new rules may end up requiring that spending in one area be cut from another. Just what the Republicans have continually done to help fund The War Against Terrorism--except that they've traditionally done it on the backs of their grandchildren, who will actually have to pay for this stuff(ing).

However, new Democrat-proposed rules governing schmoozing with lobbyists were adopted by a 430-1 vote. So clearly the Republicans must feel they were utterly necessary (although you can guess who cast the single vote in favour of continued criminality).

Which begs the question: why did the "Values" party have to wait for such rules until they became the minority party?

They could have brought in these rules at any time in the past six years and avoided six years of sleaze, graft, and corruption that still cause Washington to smell like a fish-gutter's armpit. They could have avoided being liberally splattered with Jack Abramoff, "Frozen Assets" Jefferson, and all the rest.

So why now? My guess is it's the first time any of them have lifted their heads from the trough to check a clock.