My Favorite Defense Authorization Amendment

There are 48 proferred amendments to the FY 2011 Defense Authorization Act, and I'm not going to pretend to have read through them all. But I'm pretty sure that if I did, Amendment 4704--the only one I have read--would still be my favorite. It was advanced on November 17 by Sen. Ben Nelson and reads as follows:

At the end of subtitle G of title X, add the following: SEC. 1082. WEEKLY INCREASE IN THE REWARD FOR CAPTURE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN. (a) Finding.--Congress finds that a foremost objective of United States counterterrorism policy should be protecting United States persons and property by capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, and other leaders of the al Qaeda network, and by destroying the al Qaeda network. (b) Weekly Increase in Reward.--Section 36(e)(1) of the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 (22 U.S.C. 2708(e)(1)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: ``The amount of the reward under the previous sentence shall be increased by $1,000,000 every seven days after the date of the enactment of this sentence until September 30, 2015.''.

By my rough calculation, had this policy been effect since September 11, 2001, the United States would currently be offering some $468,000,000 for Bin Laden. Of course, we still wouldn't know what to do with him if we got him.