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Lame duck Democrats propose $1.1 trillion spending bill loaded with earmarks
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When an employee is fired, he or she is usually escorted immediately from the building by security personnel. I’ve never heard of an instance where a terminated worker is allowed to handle the finances of the company that just gave them the sack.
But that’s what we’re allowing our lame-duck Congress to do. On their way out the door, they’ve loaded a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill with billions in increased spending and over 6,000 earmarks totaling $8.3 billion!
Senate Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a broad agenda for an end-of-session sprint that, in other years, could be a whole year’s worth of activity — ranging from an arms-reduction treaty with Russia to a major immigration bill to overturning the ban on gay troops.
And that’s not to mention the nearly 2,000-page, $1.1 trillion massive spending bill Senate Democrats said they’ll try to push through. The bill contains hundreds of pork-barrel spending projects and new rules governing everything from airport baggage to detainees at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“We’re not through. Congress ends on Jan. 4,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.
The omnibus spending bill is likely to get the most attention, spanning 1,924 pages and spending an average of $575.13 million per page.
It stands in contrast to the House, which last week passed a streamlined bill freezing fiscal 2011 government spending at 2010′s level. The Senate bill, though, boosts spending by $16 billion — a tough sell at a time when deficits and debt already are dominating the policy debate in Washington.
In some cases the spending bill not only rejects President Obama’s proposed cuts, it actually boosts spending.
Why are they boosting spending? What’s so crucial that we must lay out additional funding at a time when our nation can least afford it? Here’s a quick look at a few of the Democrat party’s priorities:
- $247,000 – Virus free grapes in Washington State
- $413,000 – Peanut research in Alabama
- $125,000 – Fishery equipment for the Guam Fisherman’s Cooperative Association
- $349,000 – Swine waste management in North Carolina
- $277,000 – Potato pest management in Wisconsin
- $246,000 – Bovine tuberculosis treatment in Michigan and Minnesota
- $522,000 – Cranberry and blueberry disease and breeding in New Jersey
- $500,000 – Oyster safety in Florida
- $400,000 – Solar parking canopies and plug-in electric stations in Kansas
- $165,000 – Maple syrup research in Vermont
- $300,000 – Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii
- $235,000 – Noxious weed management in Nevada
- $100,000 – Edgar Allen Poe Cottage Visitor’s Center in New York
No wonder Congress’ approval rating just hit an all-time low — 13%!
Republicans are attempting to force a reading of the bill on the floor of the Senate. Every single word should go on record — as should every Senator who hid pork in the bill — before a vote is allowed on this massive new confiscation of taxpayer funds.
But Chairman Zero is ratcheting up the demagoguery to defend his big-spending buddies.
“This is a new low in putting political stunts ahead of our national security, and it is exactly the kind of Washington game-playing that the American people are sick of,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
Republicans, led by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, said the moves were intended as a way to force lawmakers to slow down and learn what’s actually contained within the legislation.
…DeMint said in a statement that “President Obama and Democrats have apparently learned nothing from this November’s election” as evidenced by the fact that the massive spending bill is “filled with thousands of earmarks …Democrats are intent on raiding every taxpayer dollar that they can grab from the Treasury on their way out of power.”
…The omnibus spending bill could take up to 40 or even 60 hours to read aloud since the $1.1 trillion bill comes in at nearly 2,000 pages.
“What a colossal waste of time,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday on the Senate floor.
Yeah, how dare we waste their time with accountability when they’re in such a hurry to spend OUR money?
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UPDATE: The porkfest just keeps getting more obscene. Democrat Congressman Emanuel Cleaver has proposed a $48 BILLION dollar earmark to redistribute wealth to the inner cities. The Southeast Missourian reports:
In the midst of a colossal global concern for the economic stability of our great nation, Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri’s 5th Congressional District representative, has one small earmark on his wish list that deserves some attention.
Cleaver has listed a new earmark — one of several — and he promises to “fight for every one.” But this is a whopping $48 billion package that must go down as the grandaddy of all earmarks.
Proposed by a gentleman named Lamar Mickens, president of the not-for-profit Quality Day Campus, the $48 billion earmark would funnel money into the inner cities to give money to the poor and thereby produce a much larger consumer class to buy the goods and services produced in this country.
Just call this redistribution on steroids.
Cleaver’s office says this of the proposal:
“The Epicenter is a proposed estimated $48 billion (Phase One) mass scale urban reclamation project for combating, reducing, reversing and/or eliminating poverty within under served communities by utilizing mass scale economic redevelopment to bring about stability and self reliance.
OK. So the idea is short of specifics.
Currently Mickens operates this massive proposal out of his home but with Cleaver’s help, this earmark could put him on the road to success.
Cleaver provides a link to a Mickens “manifesto” where a lengthy agenda is outlined — but again with no specifics other than the rich should provide money to the poor so that the poor will have more money to spend. [emphasis added]
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UPDATE: Senator Tom Coburn, M.D., (R-OK) has posted a working database of all earmarks included in the Omnibus Appropriations bill. “It’s important to note that the database only refers to disclosed earmarks, not the billions in undisclosed earmarks.”
Posted by FullMetalPatriot
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT
I was thinking about going out for a nice lunch… but now I've lost my appetite.
I read about the 'budget' and I looked at the spreadsheet, and I'm just sick. Our government, Federal, State and local, will never get any better. It will get worse, spending will increase and the end will never be in sight. The country is already broke and in debt, there are more criminal laws every year, more money is spent on oppressing the great unwashed.
There is not one damned thing that can be done to improve it. Not one.
Mad Jack,
I share your despondence over our immoral Congress. The only way to improve our situation is to replace profligate spenders with fiscal conseratives in BOTH parties. We, and they, should always ask "What is the LEAST that government can do? And how can we make do with less for now?" That's what most Americans are having to do with their current budgets, and it's what our government should be forced to deal with as well.
Atlas is in the process of shrugging, but Congress is still latched on like an engorged tick. It's time to get out the tweezers.