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]

Tell it to the judge when you're caught with 5 mallards and no duck stamp. It should pi$$ him off real good. For good measure, ask him why there is an illegal US flag behind the bench.

[jgrubbs]

Read the constitution...

You still use that old, outdated document? We live in a different world now, the constitution may have worked for the founding fathers, but it's too outdated for the 21st century.

< /sarcasm>

[CSM]

Yep, what is enforced and what is written is very different. The water is very warm, you cute little frog!

[wallcrawlr]

$200,000 Advanced Traffic Analysis Center, North Dakota


WHAT IS THIS????

Have you been to NoDak....there is nothing but tractors and old people.

[jgrubbs]

Advanced Traffic Analysis Center (ATAC) is a Technology Support Center for addressing transportation needs and issues in small-to-medium size cities. ATAC focuses on enhancing transportation systems in small-to-medium size cities through the use of advanced traffic analysis and ITS solutions to address safety and mobility problems.

http://www.atacenter.org/

[MindyW]

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

IIRC, I think they get the option of comp time or overtime. Before they had no option.

[wallcrawlr]

huh?

[Bloodclot]

$450,000 Trout Genome Mapping

Why the hell do we have to map the trout's genome???
Give me the 450 grand and my wife will pump it right
back into the economy.

[OldFriend]

Oh no......where is the swimmer going to get his $2billion for us to all have free health care?

[okie01]

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

And more liberal, activist judges.

Is that what you want?

[Blood of Tyrants]

IMHO, there are two serious problems that the authors of the Constitution did not forsee. One was a class of professional politicians caused by no term limits. The other is the electoral college that basically shuts out any third party from the political process. Get rid of the electoral college and require the winning candidate to get 50% + one vote, with a runoff in case that no one gets a plurality, and the two party system will come crashing down within a very few years.

[LayoutGuru2]

Just ask Shep about J-Lo's roots.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

Just ask Shep about J-Lo's roots.

OOPS!!! I wonder how that got in there?

[stopem]

Outrageous budget and definitely NOT conservative!

[stopem]

Are you serious, all of that pork is in the budget?

[jgrubbs]

Are you serious, all of that pork is in the budget?

That isn't all of it, just a list of some of it.

[AuntB]

Now, I'm really depressed!

[AuntB]

A gallon of DDT will do it...cheap.

[AuntB]

"By the way, since when does the natural migration of insects fall under commerce?"

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.

[jgrubbs]

Constitution Party Bump!