Posted on 02/14/2003 1:32:38 PM PST by Sir Gawain
Congress OKs spending bill
WASHINGTON (AP) --President Bush is hailing Congress for completing a belated $397.4 billion measure financing nearly every federal agency, but Democrats say the measure is far less fiscally conservative than the president claims.
Nearly five months into the government's fiscal year -- and even more months of budget deadlock between Bush and lawmakers -- Congress finally approved the mammoth package late Thursday with wide bipartisan majorities. The House vote was 338-83, while Senate approval was by 76-20.
"This budget will provide valuable resources for priorities such as homeland security, military operations and education, while adhering to the spending restraint set forth in my budget," Bush said in a written statement. "I look forward to signing this legislation and to continuing a course of fiscal discipline."
The measure provides money for every agency but the Pentagon, whose budget was completed last year.
It also bore thousands of home-district projects for senators and representatives totaling billions of dollars. That included the $90,000 that Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, took credit for winning to create a bilingual audio tour for the cowgirl museum in Fort Worth, where she was once mayor.
One portion of the bill alone had 885 such projects for community development grants.
The measure ended up containing billions of dollars less than Democrats wanted for domestic security, land acquisition and other initiatives. They noted that even so, the measure cost well more than the $385 billion Bush initially demanded.
In the final hectic days of negotiations, House and Senate Republicans threw in $3.1 billion to help farmers and ranchers, including those hurt by drought and floods; $1.5 billion to help states revamp their election systems; and $54 billion over 10 years to increase Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals.
Along with $31.8 billion for road building -- $8 billion more than Bush proposed -- none of those items counted toward the bill's price tag because they come from different parts of the budget. The bill also gained $10 billion originally sought by Bush for added defense spending, plus $1.5 billion to help local governments improve voting systems.
The measure would provide $53.1 billion for the Education Department, $3.1 billion more than Bush requested.
The measure also included:
* $15.4 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, $500 million over last year. It included $50 million to let the space agency investigate the Feb. 1 destruction of the space shuttle Columbia, which killed seven astronauts.
* Nearly $11.8 billion for school districts serving large numbers of low-income students, $1.4 billion more than last year.
* $3.5 billion for local police, firefighters, emergency personnel and other "first responders." Democrats argued Bush had promised a "new" $3.5 billion for these programs and that the figure was only $1.2 billion more than was provided a year ago.
Congress also approved the purchase of the anthrax-tainted office building owned by the publisher of the National Enquirer.
The government will buy the building for $1, and then cover the cost to clean it, according to provisions in the spending package. The cleanup is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars.
Is this the AMI building? What are they going to do with it?
Hopefully pretend to clean it and then donate it to be a mosque.
Do ya think there may be some sort of chance I might be able to get some tax relief for educating my own children while my taxes are going to pay for the government to educate somebody else's kid?
Inadequately, I might add.
It would be the AMI building. And the government's acquisition has some rather interesting implications.
Recall that the fedgov has readily assumed kind of a "national defense" liability, acting as the insurer-of-last-resort in terrorism cases -- paying for the WTC clean-up, indemnifying the survivors, etc.
That a similar action is being undertaken withe respect to the AMI building is tantamount to an admission that the anthrax was an act of foreign terrorists...
Oddly, nobody in the mainstream media seems to have noticed the rather obvious connection. Nor are they likely to, I suppose...
Annie Oakley and Dale Evans are inductees, so I guess it's legit.
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