Senate Plays Hardball with Darth Cheney

[Nbadan]

The U.S. quits funding terra....

A Senate appropriations panel chaired by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., refused to fund $4.8 million in the vice president’s budget until Cheney’s office complies with parts of an executive order governing its handling of classified information.

At issue is a requirement that executive branch offices provide data on how much material they classify and declassify. That information is to be provided to the Information Security Oversight Office at The National Archives.

Cheney’s office, with backing from the White House, argues that the offices of the president and vice president are exempt from the order because they are not executive branch ”agencies.”

The funding cut came as the appropriations panel approved 5-4 along party lines a measure funding White House operations, the Treasury Department and many smaller agencies.

Think Progress

Now if we can just work it out where all 3 branches cut off each other's spending, we'd have much more general concensus among citizens...but cutting off Cheney's funding is a good start..give him a desk, a answering machine for when he's in his 'undisclosed location', and a Prius....

[boutons_]

$4.8M? chicken-feed Exxon or Halliburton or API will cover that in an eyeblink