Thread: Senate delays spending bill vote to next week

Friday, March 6, 2009
Senate delays spending bill vote to next week
S.A. Miller

Senate Democrats beat back a series of Republican proposed changes to a $410 billion omnibus spending bill Thursday, but they couldn't muster enough votes to block more amendments as final consideration was postponed until next week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, had planned on passing the package Thursday night but could not secure adequate support to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to cut off debate and allow a final roll-call vote.

"We would be a vote short," Mr. Reid said on the Senate floor. "And, with my being a vote counter, discretion is the better part of valor."

Republicans insisted on offering at least a dozen more amendments Monday that Mr. Reid said he would "work hard to defeat."

The omnibus package, which funds most federal agencies until the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30, would replace a stopgap measure that expires Friday.

The House is expected to pass another temporary spending measure Friday, followed by Senate approval, to keep the government running until Tuesday.

The House passed the omnibus last week but would have to revisit the legislation if changed by the Senate. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said she would instead take up a continuing resolution to fund the government at 2008 levels until the end of the year.

The threat forced Mr. Reid to hold the line on amendments - a labor that now will continue.

Republicans and several Democrats who broke with their party over the pork-laden omnibus bill balked at the price tag, which boosts spending 8 percent over 2008 levels and comes amid a frenzy of spending by President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress.

Raising members' ire are more than 9,000 earmarks costing $12.8 billion for lawmakers' pet projects in the omnibus package. Democrats say it is less than 1 percent of the bill and a trivial complaint.

Mr. Reid has kept rank-and-file members in line to help defeat Republican amendments, which would have trimmed the bill or preserved Bush administration programs gutted in the legislation through funding cuts and policy riders.

Most Democrats and a couple of Republicans are expected to ultimately help the bill clear the 60-vote hurdle. But conservative Democrats uncomfortable with the spending could then go on record as opposing the bill when it goes to a vote on the merits and requires just a simple majority of the 100-member chamber.

Republican leaders criticized the bill as more of Democrats' "borrow-and-spend" governing and noted that the omnibus package heaps funding on 122 programs previously funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus.

It also is a forerunner of the president's $3.55 trillion budget for fiscal 2010, which begins Oct. 1.

"It doesn't include the president's budget, the housing proposal or untold trillions to stabilize financial markets and other programs," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican. "Our children and grandchildren ... will be the ones left to pay off the federal government credit card that Democrats in Congress are busy maxing out."

Despite Mr. Obama's oft-stated dislike for earmarks and the ways of Washington, the White House said it would not take a stand against the projects because the legislation originated under the previous administration and therefore represents the final Bush budget bill.

The White House said Monday that it would release new rules for earmarks before signing the omnibus bill, a proposal that quickly exposed a rift with Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill.

The Republican amendments shot down Thursday included a move to ban U.S. dollars going to a U.N. family planning program that critics say promotes abortion, one of more than a dozen Bush administration policies being erased in the omnibus spending bill.

The sponsor of the defeated measure, Sen. Roger Wicker, Mississippi Republican, said it would prevent taxpayer dollars helping the U.N. Population Fund support forced sterilization and abortion as part of China's one-child policy.

"The United States must side with the women and children that have been victimized by China's one-child policy," Mr. Wicker said.

Democrats insisted that language in the bill already prohibits money from going to programs that support abortion or forced sterilization.

"The amendment is unnecessary," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, said during debate. "None of us are going to permit the use of federal funds for involuntary sterilization."

The amendment died in a 55-39 vote, with three Democrats siding with 36 Republicans in support, while three Republicans joined 50 Democrats in opposition.

www.washingtontimes.com

This gives us time to call Sen. Harry Reid to urge him to allow Sen. Sessions to offfer his Amendment 604, which would renew E-Verify for five years, to the Stimulus Bill. Also to call our own Senators and ask them to vote for this amendment!

Finally, a show of cojones: Senate GOP forces delay on omni-pork bill

By Michelle Malkin • March 5, 2009 10:32 PM Some encouraging news breaking tonight: Senate Republicans forced a delay on consideration of the $410 billion omni-pork spending bill. Harry Reid canceled the vote after confessing that he was one vote short of the 60 needed to shut off debate and move forward.

A Hill friend says Reid had to walk out 20 minutes after the scheduled vote and end the quorum call because he couldn’t close the cloture deal.

Cojones:

Senate Republicans, demanding the right to try to change a huge spending bill, forced Democrats on Thursday night to put off a final vote on the measure until next week. The surprise development will force Congress to pass a stopgap funding bill to avoid a partial shutdown of the government.

Republicans have blasted the $410 billion measure as too costly. But the reason for GOP unity in advance of a key procedural vote was that Democrats had not allowed them enough opportunities to offer amendments.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., canceled the vote, saying he was one vote short of the 60 needed to close debate and free the bill for President Barack Obama’s signature.

Democrats and their allies control 58 seats, though at least a handful of Democrats oppose the measure over its cost or changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba. That meant Democrats needed five or six Republican votes to advance the bill.

None of the GOP’s amendments is expected to pass, but votes on perhaps a dozen are now slated for Monday night, Reid said.

The huge, 1,132-page spending bill awards big increases to domestic programs and is stuffed with pet projects sought by lawmakers in both parties. The measure has an extraordinary reach, wrapping together nine spending bills to fund the annual operating budgets of every Cabinet department except for Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.

Once considered a relatively bipartisan measure, the measure has come under attack from Republicans — and a handful of Democrats — who say it is bloated and filled with wasteful, pork-barrel projects.

The Obamedia AP sticks in its editorial comment: “But the reason for GOP unity in advance of a key procedural vote was that Democrats had not allowed them enough opportunities to offer amendments.â€