The School Finance Bill HB 2 and the Tax Bill HB 3 were both defeated on the House Floor on Tuesday and they adjourned until Thursday.
We spent the day Wednesday, after our Lab work, watching C-Span as the Leaders set the stage for passage of CAFTA. The trade actions of China that cause the large trade deficit with the United States is of grave importance to the country. Many said we should be working on that rather than CAFTA.
Congressman Thomas came up with HR 3283 to supposedly help with the US-China Trade Policies in an effort to gain votes for CAFTA. The Resolution was voted on and failed. It was brought back up again with rules put into place forbidding any Amendments in an attempt to guarantee passage on the second time around without any changes.
The problem with HR 3283 is that it does not cover anything that is not already covered by law thus it makes no changes in US-China Trade Policies. Terri said that is just smoke and mirrors. I disagree if there is any honesty or humanity in those who voted for this Resolution they couold not stand to look into a mirror while they vote.
Next issue up was to pass a Resolution encouraging the provisional govt. of Iraq to give Iraqi women Equal Rights. What a waste of time. There is no way that is going to happen and they full well know it.
With that little wasted time we get down to the nitty gritty. The CAFTA Bill will be heard on the House Floor tonight. A few of the Pork Barrel projects to gain votes were discussed this evening. You can watch the discussion and vote tonight on C-Span. We are not certain of the time. If you wish to sopend some time reading the Bill go to
www.c-span.org We will probably learn tonight whether the phone calls did any good.
I know Tom DeLay will vote in favor. He has done everything possible to ruin Texas.
Do phone calls work? Yesterday when the vote on HB 3 came up Jim Pitts had to admit that he had made a mistake. He didn’t say that in so many words. He surprised everyone by saying he had received 1000 calls from his constituents opposing HR 3 so he was voting with his constituents. That should remind us to make the calls before the damage is done. Thankfully we get another shot at another Tax Bill.
