Senate Approves Huge Spending Bill After Democrats' Delay

The New York Times ^ | January 22, 2004 | DAVID STOUT

[jgrubbs]

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 — The Senate gave President Bush and his Republican allies a victory today by approving an $820 billion spending bill covering more than a dozen federal departments and agencies in the fiscal year that began almost four months ago.

The vote was 65 to 28. But that vote was anticlimactic, in a sense, because minutes earlier the chamber had voted, 61-32, to end a delay, or filibuster, that had blocked the measure. The 61 votes were one more than needed to defeat the filibuster.

The bill, approved by the House weeks ago, was a conspicuous item of unfinished Senate business over the holiday recess. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans fell 12 votes short of the 60 needed to block the filibuster, when only 48 senators voted to cut off debate.

"Our desire isn't to kill this bill," Senator Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, the minority leader, told reporters after the Tuesday vote. "Our desire is to give them a chance to fix it."

Republicans said, in effect, that there was nothing to fix. "We are not changing this bill, period," said Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate.

Mr. Daschle conceded after Tuesday's roll call that he did not expect the filibuster to endure and that final passage would come before February. In anticipation of today's vote, a number of Democrats said they had made their point.

Democrats objected to provisions they said will allow the Bush administration to threaten the overtime pay of millions of workers; relax media ownership rules; and delay a requirement that supermarket meat and produce carry labels identifying them by country of origin. The meatpacking industry and the major organization representing cattlemen oppose the labels.

"Take it or leave it," Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said angrily today in describing the Republicans' attitude. "This is one senator who's going to leave it because of what it will do to working families and women and veterans of this country."

Republicans had said that if Democrats continued to block the $820 billion bill (which includes Social Security and Medicare), then they would push through a resolution financing the affected departments and agencies at last year's levels.

That could have had serious repercussions, not only in the vast federal bureaucracy but for individual lawmakers, many of whom have to run this year.

Line-by-line scrutiny of huge spending bills almost invariably turns up instances of special-interest items, some with civic benefits, virtually all meant to burnish the images of the legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike, with their local constituents.

Three Republican senators, Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and John S. McCain of Arizona, sided with the Democrats on Tuesday. Mr. McCain had complained that the bill was studded with special-interest, pork-barrel spending. "It's hard to pick the ugliest pig in this sty," he said.

Ugly or not, the bill cleared the Senate this afternoon. Many of the lawmakers have acknowledged that the election season will require much of their attention and energy. And before long, President Bush will send them his proposed budget for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

[CholeraJoe]

Even when it was legal, DDT was not effective against termites.

[AuntB]

Please forgive my feeble attempt at humor. If the government would give me as much money as they gave this study, I'd go kill 'em one by one.

[AuntB]

Oh, you are a seductive devil. I so want to support this president. For a while I almost felt guilty for being registered "no party affiliation". Until we get rid of the R's and the D's, this country is in trouble.

[donozark]

I don't dispute what you say. However, SCOTUS said they will announce later this year whether or not they will hear the case. Hope it is a done deal. But having been upset so many times here in Missouri re:CCW, I just don't know if Republicans are out of the woods yet in TX. over this re-districting thing. Maybe I am just paranoid?

[manic4organic]

Makes me ill.

[m1-lightning]

I hope the Republican's lose the majority in the Senate. Then maybe we'll have gridlock and less spending.

Less spending toward conservative issues, you mean. The reason Democrats spend so much is because they 'buy their votes'. My governor has bitched about the Republicans in our state spending so much and has limited what they can spend but yet he holds no restrictions for money spent towards the gay community and labor unions.

[m1-lightning]

Sen. Edwards appears to have lost his copy of the Dimocrats talking points.

That may just be the reason he's always mad.

[m1-lightning]

Hope the GOP isn't counting on the votes of the people they just screwed out of overtime pay.

Since when do government unions vote Republican anyway?

[m1-lightning]

I believe this bill also requires that firearms background checks expire after 24 hours.

[RDangerfield]

m1-lightning: Less spending toward conservative issues, you mean. The reason Democrats spend so much is because they 'buy their votes'.

Then maybe you can explain how the president is going to pay for the two dozen or so new programs he proposed in the SOTU speech to buy votes. Much less the space program, which he did not mention. He announced today that he is going to limit spending increases to one percent for everything outside of entitlements and defense. So how does he pay for his own programs?
--Raoul

[CSM]

"Get rid of the electoral college and require the winning candidate to get 50% + one vote,....."

The perfect system to end up with Gore as a pres. Where would we be right now if that happenned?

I do agree that a two party system is hurting this country.

[CSM]

"Since the entire commerce clause became the law of the land instead of the Constitution....since the feds regulate fish because they might swim up a river from state to state....it happened when we weren't looking."

Exactly. It actually happened to us after we were put in the pot and the burner was turned on. What is that bubbling in our lake?

[Merdoug]

The Federal government blackmails the states into doing what they want by withholding the money taken from them by our taxes and doling it back out. That's how the Congress gets it's power: by who gets to control the money going back to the states. It's incideous but no American seems to mind.

[m1-lightning]

Maybe if he gets his super majority in November then he will be able to cut some of these liberal programs.

[m1-lightning]

It's incideous but no American seems to mind.

I do. It's a loophole in the Constitution that gives the feds the power to control those 'reserved powers' mentioned in Amendment X. We're a little ticked about the seat belt law exchange for highway funds. My state has a US Senate candidate, Jack Ryan, running this year who has mentioned that this is an ongoing problem and has got to stop.

[jgrubbs]

Bush to propose spending freeze

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040122-113950-1435r.htm

Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said the proposal is "definitely a good start."

-"The key question is whether the White House will back up this proposal with a veto threat, because last year the president proposed a 4 percent increase and, with the passage of the omnibus spending bill, he's about to sign a 9 percent increase," he said.

If he doesn't use his veto on this omnibus spending bill and allows this 9 percent increase, then he is breaking his promise of an "increase of less than 1 percent for federal programs not related to defense or homeland security, effectively freezing discretionary spending in the next budget".

[jgrubbs]

Maybe if he gets his super majority in November then he will be able to cut some of these liberal programs. Does that include the liberal programs that he has created and the ones that he has increased the size of?

[m1-lightning]

You never know. It could have been a political bluff. After all, that medicare reform doesn't go into effect until 2006.

[marcinrochester]

I'll believe this "spending freeze" when I see it. In my opinion it's like Nixon in China. Only a known anti-Communist had the ability to make peace with Communist China. Only a Conservative hero like Bush has the ability to spend so much.

He keeps talking like he's the one who wants to keep the spending down, but we all know he can get Congress to do whatever he wants. I'm just fed up with how much of my money he is spending.