Dave Helling: U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder’s Bank Bill Deserved a Full Debate
At the same time, though, the Yoder amendment’s tortured path to passage deserves scrutiny. How did such an important policy decision end up in a massive, last-minute, can’t-amend, can’t-veto spending bill?
Yoder says he didn’t put it there. Staff members apparently grabbed the amendment and stuffed in into the December spending bill, where liberal critics found it.
The practice of attaching unrelated policy choices to must-pass spending bills is as old as Congress, but it remains reprehensible. Something as potentially important as the Yoder amendment should have had an up-or-down vote as a stand-alone bill, not as a freeloader on a law designed to keep the government open.
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