The Semper Fi Act of 2008

Posted by Tina Grazier

You may have heard about the Berkley city council passing a series of measures aimed at pushing a Marine recruitment office out of town. The message was clearly you are not welcome in our city. Code Pink, the looney pink peace birds, have been granted a permanent parking space in front the recruitment office by the same council for the express purpose of protest (harassment). They spray paint the building and discourage citizens from talking with recruiters.

Now several senators and a house member have written a bills to remind the city of Berkley of the vital service these Marines provide them:

U.S. Senators James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-Oklahoma), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and David Vitter (R-Louisiana) introduced the Semper Fi Act of 2008. The bill would rescind over $2 million in hidden earmarks for Berkeley, California in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill, and transfer the funds to the Marine Corps. U.S. Congressman John Campbell (R-California) is introducing a companion bill in the House of Representatives.

One earmark provides $243,000 in taxpayer dollars for the organization Chez Panisse http://www.chezpanisse.com/ to create gourmet organic school lunches in the Berkeley School District. *** Another earmark would spend $975,000 in taxpayer dollars for the University of California in Berkeley Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service, to create a new endowment and cataloging the papers of Congressman Robert Matsui. U.C. Berkeley currently already has a $3.5 billion endowment.