Taxpayers got a chainsaw in the back from Republican leaders, the Clinton Administration and Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) when the House voted on timber road subsidies July 10. Even so, taxpayers won a few dollars in savings in the House. But this partial savings will likely be lost as the bill moves through the Senate.

What will remain is the bitter betrayal of taxpayers by leaders from both parties of the subsidized status quo. This means taxpayers will continue in 1998 to subsidize cutting more timber roads in National Forests.

Reformers mounted an amazing effort. The bipartisan reform coalition of sponsors included Republican Reps. Porter, Royce, Klug and Kasich and Democratic Reps. Kennedy, Miller and Furse. Indeed, this Porter-Kennedy coalition was poised to win a House floor vote to significantly cut subsidized logging.

But the gut-check vote came on a tricky amendment to undermine the Porter-Kennedy initiative. That second-degree amendment was offered by Rep. Dicks (who in his spare time champions buying more B-2 Bombers – this guy really costs us!). The Dicks amendment passed 211-209.

The original Porter-Kennedy amendment would have cut $41.5 million of appropriated funds and all $50 million in taxpayer assets from the purchaser road credit program, which gives timber companies trees in exchange for logging roads. In the end, the House voted to cut $5.6 million from the $41.5 million in direct appropriations for new timber road construction and $25 million from the purchaser road credit program (a 50% reduction).

Republican leaders could have freed members to vote with their conscience or regional interests. Instead, GOP moderates reported that GOP leaders whipped their troops hard for Dicks and against Porter-Kennedy. Also, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who by tradition seldom votes, even made a special point to vote for subsidies for the second year in a row. But at least GOP leaders were honest about their party’s support for socialized logging.

In classic Clinton Administration double-talking, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman wrote Congress that the Porter-Kennedy amendment “went too far.” Then Glickman issued a “clarificati.png” letter that confused everybody and allowed the Administration to say it sympathized with both sides. As the chainsaw tore into taxpayers’ backs, no doubt the Clinton Administration felt our pain.