Last week, OhMyGov! alerted its readers to a congressional plan to silently push a $630 billion Omnibus bill which tied a record Pentagon budget with increased funding for Gulf Coast hurricane relief, a multi-billion dollar bailout to US auto manufacturers, and increased health care funding for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The House bill (H.R. 1527), fueled by a need to keep the government running past October 1, was passed with a 370-58 vote. It included 2,322 pet projects totaling $6.6 billion.
Yesterday, perhaps to upstage the House, the Senate passed its own version of the bill (S. 3001) with a 78-12 vote, tacking on an additional $4 billion.
Such a huge bill usually would dominate the end-of-session agenda with fanfare, photo ops and press coverage, but has received little attention and fallen off the radar of most media outlets due to the domination of discussions on the congressional bailout of Wall Street.
The measure was needed to keep the government operating beyond the current budget year, which ends Tuesday. It includes:
- $73 billion for veterans' programs and military base construction projects;
- $70 billion approved this summer for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan;
- $488 billion for the Defense Department;
- $40 billion for the Homeland Security Department;
- $25 billion in taxpayer-subsidized loans for automakers and oil companies;
- $23 billion for disaster-ravaged states;
- $7.5 billion to subsidize the retooling of plants and development of technologies to help U.S. car makers to build cleaner, more fuel efficient cars; and
- removal of a long-standing ban on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts
Last evening, the Congress and the Administration reached a $700 billion deal to
bailout homeowners, and the financial sector.
Despite the changes made during an intense week of negotiations, the
heart of the program remains President Bush's original idea: spend
billions of taxpayer dollars to buy mortgage-backed securities whose
value has plummeted.
President Bush is expected to sign both bills, even though the Omnibus bill spends more money and contains more pet projects than he would have liked. Bush's signature would mean Congress could avoid a lame-duck session after the Nov. 4 election.
Related Stories:
[+] Congressional spending out of control; time for a change in mindset
[+] We Neglect the Public Sector at Our Peril
[+] Rumors on the Hill: Omnibus Bill to hit the floor today