New spending bill totals $575.13 million per page

Reid threatens to keep Congress into next year

 

Forget about going quietly into the night.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a broad agenda for an end-of-session sprint that, in other years, could be a whole year's worth of activity — ranging from an arms-reduction treaty with Russia to a major immigration bill to overturning the ban on gay troops.

And that's not to mention the nearly 2,000-page, $1.1 trillion massive spending bill Senate Democrats said they'll try to push through. The bill contains hundreds of pork-barrel spending projects and new rules governing everything from airport baggage to detainees at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We're not through. Congress ends on Jan. 4," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.

The omnibus spending bill is likely to get the most attention, spanning 1,924 pages and spending an average of $575.13 million per page.

It stands in contrast to the House, which last week passed a streamlined bill freezing fiscal 2011 government spending at 2010's level. The Senate bill, though, boosts spending by $16 billion — a tough sell at a time when deficits and debt already are dominating the policy debate in Washington.

In some cases the spending bill not only rejects President Obama's proposed cuts, it actually boosts spending. For example, Mr. Obama earlier this year told Congress to cut funding for the health and welfare package targeting Mississippi's Delta region, which in 2010 received about $26 million. But the Senate bill includes funding and actually increases it to nearly $35 million in 2011.

Senators also picked up the slack for their House colleagues, whose bill was devoid of pork-barrel earmarks, by including House lawmakers' requests in the Senate's own bill. Still, earmarks total less than 1 percent of the bill's spending.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat, who is Appropriations Committee chairman, said that doing a full omnibus bill will help make sure spending is targeted and appropriate.

"While I appreciate the work that the House has done in producing a full-year Continuing Resolution, I do not believe that putting the government on autopilot for a full year is in the best interest of the American people," Mr. Inouye said.

In a memo, the Appropriations Committee said the House approach fails to make $10.2 billion in cuts to wasteful military programs and also fails to increase spending for new needs that have popped up in the past year, such as more oversight of offshore oil-drilling rigs.

But the measure also takes care of smaller needs, such as specifically authorizing the secretary of health and human services to purchase six new government sedans.

The push comes as many lawmakers already are eyeing the door.

Mr. Reid, though, said Congress will stay until he tries to tackle issues he says have been unfairly stalled by the GOP.

"I hate to report all this to you — but you know, there's still Congress after Christmas," he told reporters. "So if the Republicans think that because they can stall and stall and stall that we take a break, we're through, we're not through."

Washington Times

I think this is a good time to say thank you to all those who voted for, supported or donated to the Campaigns of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

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It’s Official:  Our Leaders Have Lost Their Freaking Minds… or only care about their own agenda!!  A lame-duck session gone wild!

Broken Earmark Promises

Wednesday -- behind closed doors -- President Barack Obama signed his 2009 Omnibus spending package, calling it an "imperfect" bill. With 8,570 disclosed earmarks worth $7.7 billion "imperfect" is an understatement.

It's bad enough that our president was in an irresponsible rush to spend hundreds of billions with his "stimulus" package ($787 billion), and soon $350 million in the second half of the TARP funds, $32 billion -- at least -- for his new SCHIP program, and now $410 billion in his "imperfect" omnibus bill, but on top of that, he's been dishonest.

Just two weeks before Obama took office he told reporters that his plans would set a “new higher standard of accountability, transparency and oversight. We are going to ban all earmarks.”

On the campaign trail, ironically almost a year ago today, Obama co-sponsored an amendment that would establish a one-year earmark moratorium for 2009 (the bill failed to pass).

“We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress' seniority, rather than the merit of the project," Obama said. "The entire earmark process needs to be re-examined and reformed.”

“I pledge to slash earmarks by more than half when I’m president of the United States of America,” said Obama again on the trail in September.

During a debate with McCain in Mississippi, Obama famously said “Absolutely we need earmark reform, and when I’m president I will go line by line to make sure we are not spending money unwisely.”
Obama’s entire campaign was formed around the mantra of hope and change, “earmark reform” came out of his mouth almost as often as “um.”
And then, in his sort-of State of the Union address drum roll… “I’m proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks” said Obama.

“There was just a roar of laughter -- because there were earmarks,” ultra liberal Sen. Claire McCaskill, (D-Mi) told reporters. Actually, there were bunches, gobs of them. 
So define earmark? The Washington Post writes that none of the items in the recovery package “are traditional earmarks -- funding for a project inserted by a lawmaker bypassing the normal budgeting process -- according to the White House and Democratic leaders.”

Though the Post did report that despite pledges, the recovery package did have pork in it. No “earmarks” but “pork.”

Republicans were responsible for stripping the bill of some of its most wasteful spending (the best definition). $1.7 million for a honey bee factory, $20 million for the removal of fish passage barriers, and $300 million for “green” golf carts, just to name a few. (Republican earmarxists were responsible for others that are arguably just as bad.)

"I know that there are a lot of folks out there who've been saying, 'Oh, this is pork, and this is money that's going to be wasted,' and et cetera, et cetera. Understand, this bill does not have a single earmark in it, which is unprecedented for a bill of this size. … There aren't individual pork projects that members of Congress are putting into this bill," said Obama.

Tomato, tomahto, “earmark” or “pork” … Let’s call the whole thing off; it’s unnecessary spending of our tax dollars.

The day after Obama’s address to the nation, the House passed another $410 billion spending bill with 8,570 disclosed earmarks, and Obama signed the bill despite all the earlier promises.

$52.1 million for Vice President Joe Biden’s earmarks as a senator from Deleware, $8.3 million for Rahm Emanuel as a House member from Illinois, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, formerly a Republican congressman from Illinois, $26.5 million --  just to name a few.

So what does the Obama administration say now?

"We want to just move on. Let's get this bill done, get it into law and move forward," Budget Chief Peter Orszag told reporters.

“That's last year's business,” said Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

And why, precisely, do we believe that next year would be any different?

by Michelle Oddis, Assistant Managing Editor at HUMAN EVENTS

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