Senate Republicans Hold It Together, Pork-Filled Omnibus Bill Killed

The Senate Republicans were able to hold it together and force Harry Reid to back down and pull the omnibus bill full of Christmas goodies to various special interests because of a lack of support:

Sen. GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has long been known as an effective whip, and Thursday night he showed his prowess as he effectively stripped Democrats of the GOP votes needed to pass the $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill, killing the measure for good.

A visibly frustrated and angry Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, lashed out, saying that he had nine GOP senators supporting the measure, but that suddenly the support evaporated.

"This action taken by my friends on other side of aisle going to cause people to lose their job," Reid predicted.

"There's only one reason why cloture is not being filed...He doesn't have the votes.," McConnell chided, as he referred to the term for the process to shut down a filibuster. "And the reason he doesn't have the votes is because members on this side of the aisle increasingly felt concerned about the way we do business."

A McConnell aide said the leader "worked the phones" for days, pressing his members to quash the bill which contains $8 billion in earmarks (1% of the overall bill), several that belonged to the leader, himself, before he agreed to a pork moratorium.

Tempers flared in the chamber quickly, as Republicans gloated.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, crusader against pork, tweeted all day Wednesday and Thursday with earmarks he found in the bill, from money for disease-resistant wine grapes to a ceramics museum in Biloxi, Miss. And Thursday night, with a big grin, he praised GOP members for ditching the deal.

Two cheers for the Republicans for, actually, standing up for Republican principles. This bill needed to be tossed out and started anew. Hopefully, they will be able to do another one soon. Hold the pork, though.

They needed to do this to keep or regain the confidence of the people that elected them to turn things around. The GOP has been just as bad in this area over the last decade as the Democrats, which is why they got the boot in 2008. Luckily, the TEA Party was able to wake up the Grand Old Party this past year before were exiled into oblivion forever.

They are still are on probation with the voters. So, they need to keep working on being the fiscally responsible and cutting spending, if they ever want to get regain our trust for good.

Sen. Sessions: There’s “No Way” That I Can Read This Omnibus Bill and Master It Before We Vote

Republican Senator Jeff Session (AL) expressed his concern over the size and the limited timetable that the Senate has to comb through the bill before it would have to be voted on at the end of the week:

Sen. Jeff Session (R.-Ala.) told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that there is “no way” someone could master the full 1,924-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill before Congress votes on it later this week.

Other senators said they were working through the bill with their staff, and one remarked he would be “lucky” if he was able to read all of it.

The current government-funding package expires on Saturday at midnight, making it imperative for Congress to approve new funding of some sort before then. The House of Representatives passed a 13-month continuing resolution last week while the Senate is considering the massive omnibus package that combines each of the 13 appropriations bills that normally make their way through Congress.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he was currently in the process of reading through the measure, noting that it was nearly 2,000 pages long.

“We’re certainly in the process of doing that right now,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday. “It’s a lengthy bill – 1,924 pages long – and we’re going through it as others have and discovering a lot of bad stuff in the bill.”

Asked by CNSNews whether he would read the bill before the vote, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said there was “no way” senators could thoroughly examine the bill, but that he would do his best to read it through.

“There’s no way you can really thoroughly master that bill in two or three days time, to tell you the truth,” he said. “But yes, I’m going to try to look at each [provision], what’s in it.”

There is no way that any part of the government should ever have to “pass a bill, so they’ll be able to find out what’s in it”. They should have released this bill at the beginning of the lame-duck, in order to give people plenty of time to digest all of the pork that is in the bill. Of course, they do it, so they can hide things in this bill that they hope won’t see the light of day before it is too late, and it is already passed.

Reid: It’s My Constitutional Duty to Pass This Pork-Laden Omnibus Bill

Here are some tweets coming from Washington reporter Jamie Dupree, who was at the Harry Reid press conference, today, regarding the omnibus bill , full of thousands of earmarks, that’s being debated in the Senate:

1. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) telling reporters right now that "we have a constitutional duty " to approve earmarks
2. More Reid on earmarks: "I can't understand why more conservative members want to give up their power"
3. BROADSIDE ON REPUBLICANS: Reid labels GOP Senators who have earmarks but vote against them "hypocrites”

This isn’t the first time that Reid has said that it is his “constitutional duty” to spend your money. It not shocking about how clueless that Reid is on this. True, it is Congress’ duty to appropriate funds, but he is leaving out that the reason why there is so much angst against this type of spending is that it is often wasteful, and most of them wouldn’t pass muster, if it was ever given full-debate in Congress. It is, also, a problem that many of them look like bribes to certain representatives and senators in exchange for their vote on a particular piece of legislation.

He does have a point that many Republicans that are fighting this bill, now, have earmarks in the bill that they fought for before it was cool to be against them. Although, some of them say that they have “seen the light”, after last month’s elections.

As long as they continue to fight against the bill and vote against it, I don’t think that their flip-flop here won’t hurt them too much. However, I think that they should even go a bit further and push for amendments that would strike their earmarks from the bill. In the future, though, if they return to their old ways and include any earmarks in any future legislation, then, they should be chastised and protested against for such wasteful spending.

Some TEA Party Caucus Members Requested for About $1B in Earmarks Last Year

Even though they are supposed to be TEA Party favorites and against wasteful spending, some of the TEA Party Caucus
got caught with their had in the taxpayers' cookie jar:

Members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus may tout their commitment to cutting government spending now, but they used the 111th Congress to request hundreds of earmarks that, taken cumulatively, added more than $1 billion to the federal budget.

According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.

"It's disturbing to see the Tea Party Caucus requested that much in earmarks. This is their time to put up or shut up, to be blunt," said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste. "There's going to be a huge backlash if they continue to request earmarks."

Here's a list of those who did request earmarks:

Bachmann and 13 of her Tea Party Caucus colleagues did not request any earmarks in the last Fiscal Year, according to CAGW's annual Congressional Pig Book. But others have requested millions of dollars in special projects.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), for one, attached his name to 69 earmarks in the last fiscal year, for a total of $78,263,000. The 41 earmarks Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) requested were worth $65,395,000. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) wanted $63,400,000 for 39 special projects, and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) wanted $93,980,000 set aside for 47 projects.

Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) takes the prize as the Tea Partier with his name on the most earmarks. Rehberg's office requested funding for 88 projects, either solely or by co-signing earmarks requests with Sens. Max Baucus (D) and Jon Tester (D), at a cost of $100,514,200. On his own, Rehberg requested 20 earmarks valued at more than $9.6 million.

More than one member can sign onto an earmark. Still, there are 29 caucus members who requested on their own or joined requests for more than $10 million in earmark funding, and seven who wanted more than $50 million in funding.....

Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), who requested 25 earmarks in the last Fiscal Year at a total cost of just over $80 million, has agreed to abide by the Republican earmark ban, according to spokesman Adam Buckalew. "He supported the moratorium and the prohibition adopted recently by the Conference on House earmarks for the 112th Congress," Buckalew said of Harper.

Perhaps, this a case of old habits and addictions dying hard, and they have since seen the light. Only time will tell, and they should know that all eyes will be on them to uphold even the most strict TEA Party standards. With the advent of the Republican Earmark Ban, this should be a non-issue from here on out, if we're lucky.

Sen. McConnell Reverses Course Over Earmark Ban

There was a surprise announcement on this first day of the lame duck session of Congress, today. Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), pulled an abrupt 180 over the earmark ban that the House Republicans are pushing:

In an abrupt reversal, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday endorsed a moratorium on earmarks that GOP conservatives are seeking to send a signal that the Republican Party is serious about curbing federal spending.

The Kentucky lawmaker announced his concession on the Senate floor, moments after the start of a lame-duck session of Congress that could stretch into mid-December. McConnell's announcement served as recognition that his bid to retain the practice of steering money to pet projects was losing steam to an emboldened coalition of tea party-backed senators, led by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

"Make no mistake, I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state. I don't apologize for them," McConnell said. "But there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight. And unless people like me show the American people that we're willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government."

This is a pretty significant turn around because the House can't pass the ban all by themselves. However, the Democrats are still dominate both sides of Congress until the end of the year. So, this might be a no-go until the beginning of the 112nd Congress.

Also, There are much bigger fish to fry during this session, that'll only last a couple of weeks, like extending the Bush cuts and passing a budget. I don't think that this will pass during the lame duck, but it will probably be one of the first things, if not number one, on the agenda for Congress in 2011.

SC GOP Senators Graham, DeMint: Propose a 1 Year Earmark Ban & Balanced Budget Amendment

While the Democrats on laying the groundwork to spend even more, top GOP senators are seeking to stop the bleeding with a ban on the notorious earmarks that bring money back into their states:

South Carolina's senators urged Congress on Thursday to institute a one-year ban on "earmarks," or funding for congressional lawmakers' pet projects.

Republican Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham also called on their colleagues to approve a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, which would bar the government from spending more than it takes in.

Nine other lawmakers joined their call, including perhaps the most famous earmark opponent of all -- Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential candidate.

This could be a ground-breaking step to getting government spending under control, if they keep their own promise. Considering that we're talking about politicians, I'm not inspired with great confidence that they will. I just hope that this isn't just publicity stunt.

Unfortunately, this has very small chance of passing in the Senate, much less the ultra-partisan House. Surely, both Graham and DeMint had to be aware of this which tells me that this might just be more of a stunt than a genuine proposal.

Harry Reid Isn't Quite Helping Hold Up Obama's Promise to Cut Earmarks

During the campaign and after , Obama promised to cut down on the number of earmarks coming out of Washington. However, his fellow Democrats aren't cooperating with the President on this. In fact, Harry Reid has increased his pork requests:

President Obama may have asked Congress to reduce the number of earmarks in its spending bills, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, isn't cutting back on his pork.

The Senate's most powerful Democrat secured 36 earmarks worth more than $89 million in the fiscal year 2010 Defense Appropriations bill, according to information provided by his office---a slight increase over the number of earmarks Mr. Reid secured in the fiscal year 2009 Defense Appropriations bill. That year, he secured 33 earmarks worth more than $83 million.

Despite pledges from Mr. Obama that his Congress would reduce the number of earmarks slipped into spending bills, Mr. Reid’s spokesman Jim Manley said in an email to the Washington Times the Majority Leader was “proud” of his earmarks.

“We’re proud of each and everyone because this money means jobs for a state that has suffered from this economy like no other,” Mr. Manley said.

He's "proud" of his sizable contribution to the federal government's massive deficit spending. No wonder Reid is having some serious troubles getting support for re-election in Nevada.

GOP Split: Rep. Ryan Courts Blue Dogs' Support, Rep. Boehner Says Who Needs Them

GOP Split on Whether to Reach Out to Moderate Democrats in Budget Battle

While Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., held out an olive branch to moderate Democrats known as "Blue Dogs" Wednesday, calling on his "friends" to join the GOP in opposing the budget, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, slammed the group as "lap dogs."

By Mosheh Oinounou FOXNews.com Thursday, March 26, 2009

House Republican leaders appear to be split on whether to reach out to their moderate colleagues on the other side of the aisle to fight the Democratic agenda.

While Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., held out an olive branch to moderate Democrats known as "Blue Dogs" Wednesday, calling on his "friends" to join the GOP in opposing the budget, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, slammed the group as "lap dogs."

The split underscores the difficulty the Republican Party is having finding a way to fight President Obama's budget blueprint, endorsed Wednesday by the House Budget Committee.

Ryan made a blunt appeal for Democratic allies this week.

"I want to make a plea to a special select audience. I want to ask my friends, the Blue Dog Democrats, do you really want all this government? Do you want your fingerprints on this massive and unprecedented growth in our national debt? You hold the cards. You hold the votes that can make a difference in this," said Ryan, the senior Republican on the House Budget Committee, during a hearing on the 2010 budget Wednesday.

Ryan's office went so far as to post his remarks to YouTube. And the Wisconsin congressman promoted the comments on his Twitter page.

Meanwhile, Boehner, who has said multiple times at recent press conferences that he had no plans to reach out to moderate Democrats, has teased the coalition.

"We'd love to have conservative Democrats join us. But every time they get a chance to do that, they always end up voting with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and the left," he told FOX News Thursday, ahead of a planned unveiling of the GOP alternative budget plan.

He called the group "lap dogs" who refuse "to get off people's laps and actually do something," during a speech Wednesday, according to Politico.com.

"They're not the force they used to be in terms of moving the Democrats to do something," Boehner reportedly told the Yale Club and Federal Policy group.

The Blue Dogs, a coalition of 51 moderate House Democrats, include legislators from conservative districts who often cross the aisle to vote with Republicans on spending, gun control and social issues. A number of caucus members have been quoted in recent weeks expressing concerns about the size of Obama's budget.

The mixed GOP message comes weeks after House Republicans declared that they had found their "voice" as the 187 members voted unanimously to oppose Obama's stimulus plan.

However, the split message is the second example in a week of strife within the conference. Nearly half of House Republicans voted for a bill last week taxing the bonuses of AIG executives, with Ryan joining GOP Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., in supporting the legislation. Boehner and the rest of the Republicans voted no.

Ryan made his plea Wednesday directly to Blue Dogs Co-Chairman Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., during the budget markup hearing calling on the group of centrists to "join us to stop this fiscal train wreck." 

"We're asking our friends on the other side of the aisle ... to help us defeat this unprecedented taxing, borrowing and spending spree, and let's get back together and fix these fiscal problems in this country, which this budget exacerbates and makes much, much worse," Ryan added. 

GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence, R-Ind., also told reporters recently that he was hearing some "very interesting rumblings" coming from Blue Dogs on spending and envisioned a coalition with like-minded Democrats.

For their part, Blue Dog leaders said Boehner should look in the mirror before accusing another caucus of being "lap dogs."

"These statements come from the same individuals who wrote the president a blank check for eight years, driving spending to the highest levels in our country's history," Melancon said.

"Rather than just saying 'no,' the Blue Dogs will continue working in a productive manner to moderate legislation and offer commonsense policy alternatives. We do not subscribe to the extreme philosophies of the far right or the far left, and we certainly do not take serious issues and use them for political gain," he added.

A Blue Dog aide said that members of the caucus are still willing to work with GOP legislators but that Republicans have so far failed to make any effort to reach out to the group.

---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/26/gop-split-reach-moderate-democrats-budget-battle/
---------------------------------------------------------------

My Thoughts

I am going to agree with Paul Ryan on this one. We need to get moderate Democrats to join us to stop Obama, Pelosi, and Reid from bankrupting this country. The GOP is at a distinct disadvantage by being outnumbered. In the Senate is extremely important for us to pull a couple of "blue dogs" to our side.

Republicans barely hold filibuster capability in the Senate, and that is by a thin thread because of the Turncoat RINO Caucus' tendency to vote with the Democrats.

Boehner's approach of flipping the blue dogs the bird isn't going to help. It is too partisan, and the people are tired of hearing of partisan bickering just for the sake of partisan bickering.

Why wouldn't we want their support? We shouldn't compromise our principles for it, but we should try to convince them that our proposals are better than Pelosi's.

Perhaps Boehner's right in his criticism of the blue dogs not standing up to Pelosi, Reid, and Obama so far, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop from working to join us in the opposition to the Democrats' spending orgy.

Another "Imperfect", Pork-Filled Bill Will Get by Obama

Mar 11, 12:11 PM EDT
Obama says he accepts 'imperfect' spending bill
By PHILIP ELLIOTT Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Acknowledging it's an "imperfect" bill, President Barack Obama said he will accept a $410 billion spending package but insisted it must signal an "end to the old way of doing business." The massive measure funding federal agencies through the fall contains nearly 8,000 pet projects, known as "earmarks" and denounced by critics as pork.

Obama defended earmarks when they're "done right," allowing lawmakers to direct money to worthy projects in their districts - but added they've been abused, and he'll work with Congress to curb them.

"I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it's necessary for the ongoing functions of government," Obama declared. "But I also view this as a departure point for more far-reaching change."

Running for president, Obama denounced the pet projects as wasteful and open to abuse - and vowed to rein them in.

Explaining his decision, Obama said that future earmarks must have a "legitimate and worthy public purpose", and the any earmark for a private company should be subject to competitive bidding rules. Plus he said he'll "work with Congress" to eliminate any the administration objects to.

But he acknowledged that earmarks have bred "cynicism", and he declared, "This piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business."

White House officials in recent weeks have dismissed criticism of the earmarks in the bill, saying the legislation was a remnant of last year and that the president planned to turn his attention to future spending instead of looking backward.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama wouldn't be the first president to sign legislation that he viewed as less than ideal. Asked whether Obama had second thoughts about signing the bill, Gibbs' reply was curt: "No."

Obama's modest set of reforms builds upon changes initiated by Republicans in 2006 and strengthened by Democrats two years ago. Most importantly, every earmark and its sponsor must be made public.

In new steps - outlined in concert with House Democratic leaders Wednesday morning - the House Appropriations Committee will submit every earmark to the appropriate executive branch agency for a review. And any earmark designed to go to for-profit companies would have to be awarded through a competitive bidding process.

But perhaps the most tangible change may be Obama's promise to resurrect the long-defunct process by which the president proposes to cut spending from bills that he has signed into law.

Under this so-called rescissions process, the White House sends Congress a roster of cuts for its consideration. Congress is free to ignore the cuts, but both Obama and senior members like Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., say they want to use it to clean out bad earmarks that make it through the process.

But Obama declined to endorse a stronger process advocated by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and others, that would have required Congress to vote on a presidential recission earmark package. Senior Democrats dislike the idea even though many of them backed it in the early-to-mid 1990s.

During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to force Congress to curb its pork-barrel-spending ways. Yet the bill sent from the Democratic-controlled Congress to the White House on Tuesday contained 7,991 earmarks totaling $5.5 billion, according to calculations by the Republican staff of the House Appropriations Committee.

The 1,132-page bill has an extraordinary reach, wrapping together nine spending bills to fund the annual operating budgets of every Cabinet department except Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs. Among the many earmarks are $485,000 for a boarding school for at-risk native students in western Alaska and $1.2 million for Helen Keller International so the nonprofit can provide eyeglasses to students with poor vision.

Most of the government has been running on a stopgap funding bill set to expire at midnight Wednesday. Refusing to sign the newly completed spending bill would force Congress to pass another bill to keep the lights on come Thursday or else shut down the massive federal government. That is an unlikely possibility for a president who has spent just seven weeks in office.

The $410 billion bill includes significant increases in food aid for the poor, energy research and other programs. It was supposed to have been completed last fall, but Democrats opted against election-year battles with Republicans and former President George W. Bush.

---------------------------------------------------------------
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBAMA_SPENDING?SITE=NEYOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
---------------------------------------------------------------

My Thoughts

"This piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business." I thought the election was supposed to be the end. I guess the Democrats had to make sure the taxpayers were going to properly fund all of their pet projects and left wing organizations like ACORN.

"It was supposed to have been completed last fall, but Democrats opted against election-year battles with Republicans and former President George W. Bush." Why was this buried at the very end of the article especially after implying that this bill was Bush's not Obama's?


Obama should stick to his earmark rhetoric and veto it. He should make them go back to the drawing board.

Obama Administraton Official: Earmarks Will Stay Until Next Year

Mar 8, 9:37 AM EDT
On earmarks, budget chief says wait till next year

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When it comes to dealing with all those pet projects in the big spending bill before Congress, President Barack Obama's budget chief says wait till next year.

White House budget director Peter Orszag says the Obama administration isn't happy with the billions of dollars aimed at lawmakers' pet projects - also known as earmarks. Obama had campaigned on changing the way such money is appropriated by Congress.

Yet Orszag says Obama doesn't want to revisit the spending bill Congress put together before he was elected and wants to move on. Next year, according to Orszag, when Obama is fully involved in the next budget from the start, earmarks will be handled differently.

Obama's budget chief appeared Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." © 2009 The Associated Press.

-----------------------------------------------------------
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WHITE_HOUSE_PET_PROJECTS?SITE=COBOU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
-----------------------------------------------------------

My Thoughts

I guess they will have to wait until the Democrats pay off their base with all of the earmarks in the stimulus and 2009 spending bill. That is probably why they're sticking in so many the last two spending bills. They want to make sure they get enough money to last them the next few years. The Obama administration couldn't very well do it immediately right after he was inaugurated because they had to have time to pay off those that helped him get elected, and they have to be able get enough to pay for other Democrats campaigns for office.

Mostly Senate Democrats Keep Pork from Questionable Lobbyists in Bill

Mar 4, 11:06 PM EST
Senate votes to preserve earmarks in spending bill
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Democrats on Wednesday preserved pet projects sought by a lobbying firm under federal investigation and tried to nail down support for big domestic spending increases in hopes of passing a wrap-up budget bill by week's end. Democrats defeated, by a 52-43 vote, an amendment to strip 13 projects that the PMA Group has pressed for. The firm, now disbanded, is accused of illegally using straw donors to funnel campaign cash to lawmakers.

At the same time, Democrats sought a few GOP votes for the $410 billion bill after two Democrats came out against it over the cost and two more threatened to withhold support over changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba.

Democrats and their allies control 58 seats in the Senate, but 60 votes will be needed to close debate and free the measure so President Barack Obama can sign it. Democrats probably will need votes from perhaps five or six Republicans if the measure is to pass Thursday night or Friday.

Democratic leaders were cautiously optimistic Wednesday night they could do just that. Passage would allow lawmakers in both parties to get the thousands of pet projects they crave and award above-inflation budget increases for education, nutrition programs, transportation and foreign aid.

The spending bill wraps together the budgets for 12 Cabinet departments and other agencies. The measure was written mostly over the course of last year, before projected deficits quadrupled and Obama's economic recovery bill left many of the same spending accounts swimming in cash.

The White House promises Obama will sign the bill despite unhappiness over the 8,000 or so homestate pet projects.

Democrats Evan Bayh of Indiana and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said they will vote against the bill; both urged Obama to veto it.

"There's just a disconnect between what people are having to go through in their daily lives - tightening their belts, economizing where they can - and what they see the government is doing," Bayh said in an interview. "I just think it's tone deaf and, substantively, we do need to get the deficit under control."

Democratic leaders appeared to be holding onto other Democrats, and some GOP leaders acknowledged that the bill is going to pick up GOP votes that would prove critical.

"I just don't know whether we have enough votes to stop it," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., the No. 3 GOP leader.

The measure contains budget increases, on average, of 8 percent for the domestic agencies it covers, far more than they received under the Bush administration.

Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Bill Nelson of Florida are considering whether to oppose the legislation because it would ease rules on travel to Cuba and make it easier for Cuba to pay for imported food and medicine.

The House passed the bill last week, and Senate Democratic leaders want to follow suit by Friday. That's when a temporary law that keeps the government in business, mostly at 2008 levels, runs out. The bill needs to be enacted by midnight on Friday - or a stopgap bill must be passed in its place - to avoid a shutdown of most domestic agencies.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., worked into overdrive to keep the bill free of floor amendments that would force the measure into negotiations with the House, delay enactment or possibly kill the measure outright.

That meant a difficult vote on an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to kill 13 "earmarks" requested by lawmakers for projects sought by the PMA Group. The Justice Department is investigating whether the company reimbursed some employees for campaign contributions to members of Congress who requested such projects.

PMA is a classic example of the "pay to play" style that has brought discredit to the earmarking process. The firm charged big fees to help companies and universities negotiate the earmark process and awarded lawmakers who sponsored pet projects such as Reps. John Murtha, D-Pa., and Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., many thousands of dollars in campaign cash.

"The Senate decided to defend business as usual at the earmark favor factory," Coburn said after the vote.

Reid said lawmakers, not lobbyists, are responsible for every earmark in the sprawling measure and that they are willing to be held accountable under recent rules requiring greater transparency in the earmarking process.

The only Republicans so far to announce support for the bill are Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the Appropriations Committee's top Republican; Richard Shelby of Alabama; and Olympia Snowe of Maine. Several other Republicans have said they may support it, including Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

The Cuban provision cited by Menendez and Nelson would restore travel rules permitting people to visit relatives in Cuba once every 12 months. President George W. Bush imposed rules in 2004 that limited travel to just two weeks every three years and confined visits to immediate family members.

The bill also would lift restrictions on financing imports of U.S. food and medicine into Cuba and effectively reverse Bush administration rules requiring "cash-in-advance" payment

-----------------------------------------------------------
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CONGRESS_SPENDING?SITE=NEYOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
-----------------------------------------------------------

My Thoughts

I am glad to see some Dems like Evan Bayh come to oppose the ridiculous earmarks, but I am disheartened to see some Republicans leaning toward it.

The bill also includes controversial provisions that would make it easier to travel to and trade with Cuba.

So Much For No More Earmarks, 9,000 of Them Found In Next Spending Bill

Earmark reform? 2009 spending bill contains 9,000 of them
By WILLIAM DOUGLAS AND DAVID LIGHTMAN McClatchy Newspapers
February 22, 2009 01:00:04 PM

WASHINGTON — During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidates Barack Obama and John McCain fought vigorously over who would be toughest on congressional earmarks.

"We need earmark reform," Obama said in September during a presidential debate in Oxford, Miss. "And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely."

President Obama should prepare to carve out a lot of free time and keep the coffee hot next week as Congress prepares to unveil a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that's riddled with thousands of earmarks, despite his calls for restraint and efforts on Capitol Hill to curtail the practice.

The bill will contain about 9,000 earmarks totaling $5 billion, congressional officials say. Many of the earmarks - loosely defined as local projects inserted by members of Congress - were inserted last year as the spending bills worked their way through various committees.

So while Obama and McCain were slamming earmarks on the campaign trail, House and Senate members - Democrats and Republicans - were slapping them into spending bills.

"It will be a little embarrassing for the president if he signs a bill with that many earmarks on it," said Stan Collender, a veteran Washington budget analyst. "He'll say they're left over from the Bush years, and he as to say that next year the bill will be clean."

Experts agree most earmarks are legitimate. Cary Leahey, senior economist with Decision Economics in New York, said the nation's economic crisis is a contributing factor to the plethora of earmarks. Lawmakers can argue that for a relatively small price they've helped boost the economy.

"One congressman's earmark is another legislative way to fix a serious problem in his district," Leahey said.

Kenneth Thomas, a lecturer in finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of business, agrees.

"I generally believe that the priority is getting money into the system sooner rather than later, especially if it's for projects that will use local contractors and create jobs," he said.

Still, it wasn't supposed to be this way. Earmarks have come under fire because of those that seem to provide what Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, calls "laugh lines," such as Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" or North Dakota's Lawrence Welk Museum.

Obama pledged to take a hard hand on earmarks and warned lawmakers in a Feb. 3 letter from Budget Director Peter Orszag not to decorate the recently signed $787.2 billion stimulus bill with them.

Democrats declared the bill earmark-free. Republicans disagreed.

"While this bill does not include traditional earmarks, we should all understand that there are earmarks in this bill," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. "There is $850 million ... to bail out Amtrak, a $75 million earmark for the Smithsonian, a $1 billion earmark for the 2010 census."

Democrats have been trying to revamp the earmark process for about two years. In 2007, they instituted a system that required members to explain the contents of each earmark, as well as a justification for why it was included in the legislation that way. They claimed this led to a reduction in earmarks by as much as 43 percent.

But critics contended the system still had problems. Simply making information more available, they said, didn't address the major criticism: That such projects should go through the regular legislative process, subject to detailed hearings and bipartisan votes.

But critics contended the system still had problems. Simply making information more available, they said, didn't address the major criticism: That such projects should go through the regular legislative process, subject to detailed hearings and bipartisan votes.

Not only does this mean the public has no chance to challenge questionable spending, but too often powerful interests who know how to work the system get favorite measures inserted.

For instance, Congressional Quarterly reported recently that more than 100 House members got earmarks for clients of the PMA Group, a lobbying firm with close ties to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who heads the powerful defense spending subcommittee. The CQ Politics analysis said in the 2009 defense spending bill, which Congress approved last year, PMA clients got about $300 million.

The CQ study came after reports the FBI is investigating the possibility of illegal campaign contributions by PMA to Murtha and other lawmakers. A Murtha spokesman said earlier this month the FBI probe has nothing to do with Murtha. A PMA spokesman declined to comment on the probe.

Appropriations committee chairmen say they are on track to reform the earmark process beginning in fiscal 2010 by requiring members to make public their requests early, so the public can scrutinize them and presumably contact lawmakers.

The change, though, doesn't apply to the 2009 funding Congress will consider next week.

Several experts believe that dramatically reducing the number of earmarks, while a laudable goal, is almost impossible. But others contend earmarks aren't that big of a problem.

"Earmarks get more attention than they deserve," said MacGuineas. "The problem is that they cause a loss of confidence in the whole budget process."

© 2009, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

-----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.modbee.com/breakingnews/story/608074.html
-----------------------------------------------------------

My Thoughts

Obama's going to need an army to help him to go "line-by-line" taking the earmarks out this next spending bill.