The Insidious Fine Print

[Commentary] It looks like a small throwaway line in a 2012 spending bill: no federal funds may be used to carry out chapters 95 or 96 of the Internal Revenue Code. A little digging shows that those chapters happen to authorize the presidential election public financing system. A few House Republicans, who have long hated the system, thought they could get rid of it by inserting the line in a bill to keep the government from shutting down this weekend.

The provision will eventually be deleted, but it is only one of scores of policy riders that Republicans have tried to insert in the spending bill. Most have nothing to do with Congress’s basic job of financing the government, but nongermane provisions have become standard procedure for conservative lawmakers to pursue ideological goals with a few words in must-pass bills. Like pieces of shrapnel, they have to be extracted one at a time, but a few always seem to remain, doing a great deal of damage. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting could no longer buy NPR programs.

When Republicans took over the House last year, they pledged to “end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with ‘must-pass’ legislation.” If any of them wonder why the popularity of Congress is at an all-time low, they need only flip through their violation of that pledge on virtually every page of this legislation.