Spending booster: Congress sends $410-billion Bill to Obama

The US Congress gave final approval to a $410 billion bill that will boost domestic spending, loosen the trade embargo on Cuba and fund thousands of congressional pet projects known as earmarks.

The Senate, after a delay last week that highlighted Democrats’ tenuous grip on the chamber, approved the so-called omnibus bill on a voice vote yesterday. Moments earlier, the bill cleared a key procedural vote, 62 to 35. The legislation, which the House passed February 25, heads to President Barack Obama for his signature into law.

Democrats said the bill would provide needed funding increases for federal agencies that saw too many lean years during former President George W Bush’s administration.

“The agencies of our government have been so under-funded and under-resourced during the Bush years that these agencies need this money so they can function properly,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said lawmakers shouldn’t be providing so much spending when the government is projected to run record deficits. “This bill costs far too much for a government that should be watching every dime,” he said.

Eight Republicans voted yesterday to bring debate on the matter to a close and put the bill to a voice vote. Three Democrats, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted against ending the debate, which required 60 votes to pass.

More Amendments
Reid tried to wrap up work on the legislation on March 5 before conceding he didn’t have the 60 votes at that point to proceed. Republican senators whose support was needed to clear the procedural hurdle withheld it so they could offer more amendments.

The trouble encountered by Reid signaled the sort of difficulties Senate Democrats may face later this year when they push for more divisive proposals the Obama administration has offered to overhaul the health care system, create a cap-and- trade system to rein in carbon dioxide emissions and raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

The final vote on the omnibus “has taken far too long,” Reid said yesterday. “I hope that we can move on to other things with a little more cooperation from the Republicans. It just seems that they’re saying ‘no’ to everything.”

Voucher Program
Democrats defeated all of the Republican amendments to the plan, including one that would have deleted provisions phasing out a pilot program in Washington, DC, allowing 1,700 poor children to use government funds to attend private schools. The vote against that amendment was 58 to 39. Republicans, who created the voucher program in 2003, portrayed Democrats as hypocrites for ending the initiative when many lawmakers send their own children to private schools.

“Why should the choice to send children to good private schools be the right of only a privileged senator’s family or those who make a lot of money,” said Senator John Ensign, a Nevada Republican. “A good education is a civil right and this should not be the exclusive purview of the rich.”