House approves $1.1 trillion spending measure

[December 11, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are muscling through a deficit-swelling spending bill, giving domestic programs their third major boost this year and awarding lawmakers with more than 5,000 home-state projects.

The House voted 221-202 Thursday to pass the 1,088-page, $1.1 trillion measure -- combining $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. The Senate immediately voted to begin debate, with a final vote likely this weekend.

No House Republicans voted for the bill. Some 28 Democrats, chiefly moderates and abortion opponents, opposed it.

The measure provides spending increases averaging about 10 percent to programs under immediate control of Congress. It comes on top of an infusion of cash to domestic agencies in February's economic stimulus bill and a $410 billion measure in March that also bestowed budget increases well above inflation.

Also Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., confirmed that the House will vote to raise the cap on government borrowing, currently set at $12.1 trillion. The hike in the debt ceiling is likely to exceed $1.5 trillion so that another politically excruciating vote to raise the limit won't be needed next year.

The deficit for the 2009 budget year registered $1.4 trillion and a comparable deficit is expected for 2010 -- and that's before Congress spends up to $100 billion to renew extended jobless payments and health insurance subsidies for the unemployed and passes legislation intended to create jobs.

"When are we going to say, 'Enough is enough?'" asked House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio. "Let's stop the madness."

In fact, the gravy train may slow next year, assuming President Barack Obama follows through on his promise to bring unsustainable trillion-dollar-plus deficits under control. His budget director has ordered agencies to brace for a spending freeze as part of a midterm election-year push to rein in record budget shortfalls.

The spending bill blends increases for veterans' programs, NASA and the FBI with a pay raise for federal workers and help for car dealers. It bundles together six of the 12 annual spending bills, capping a dysfunctional appropriations process in which House leaders blocked Republicans from debating key issues and Senate Republicans dragged out debates.

Just the $626 billion defense bill would remain. That's being held back to serve as a vehicle to advance must-pass legislation such as the debt increase.

The measure contains 5,224 so-called earmarks totaling $3.9 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based watchdog group. Republicans and Democrats share in the largesse, which includes grants to local police departments, money for road and bridge projects, and community and economic development grants.

Democrats made no apologies for the spending increases, saying that domestic programs starved under eight years of President George W. Bush.

"I see these bills as an opportunity to reverse years of neglect -- neglect to our roads and bridges, neglect to our lower-income neighbors and friends, neglect to our education system, neglect to our veterans," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

Democrats forced a $151 million cut to Obama's almost $2.8 billion request for economic and security aid to Afghanistan this week. Obama's $1.6 billion request for aid to Pakistan would be cut $124 million. But Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis. -- a top skeptic about the Afghanistan war -- said the cuts were not intended as a rebuke to Obama.

For the more than 2,000 Chrysler and GM dealers closed or facing closure, the bill would offer an improved binding arbitration process to challenge the automakers' decisions. It also renewed for two more years a federal loan guarantee program for steel companies.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, protested a provision to let Amtrak passengers carry handguns in their checked baggage, provided the guns are unloaded and locked in a secure container. The policy would go into place within a year.

The bill caps a heated debate over Obama's order to close the Guantanamo Bay jail in Cuba. It would permit detainees held at Guantanamo to be transferred to the United States to stand trial but not to be released.

Republicans also blasted moves by Democrats to drop several social policy provisions that conservatives had championed for years. A long-standing ban on the funding of abortion by the District of Columbia government would be overturned, igniting strong opposition from anti-abortion lawmakers. The bill also overturns a ban on federal money for needle exchange programs in the city, phases out a D.C. school voucher program favored by Republicans and opens the door for the city to permit medical marijuana.

It would also lift a nationwide ban on the use of federal funds for needle-exchange programs.

Federal workers would receive pay increases averaging 2 percent, with people in areas with higher living costs receiving slightly higher increases.

Republicans claimed the measure would mean a 33 percent increase for foreign aid and the State Department, but once war-related funding and emergency funding shuffles are taken into account, the increase is more like 10 to 15 percent. A Democratic press release actually claims a modest overall spending cut but then lists a host of sizable gains when describing specific programs.

The increases to foreign aid were not directed at individual countries as much as initiatives such as health programs, food aid and developmental assistance for poor countries, and funding for additional foreign service officers.

The Senate voted 56-43 to take up the measure, short of the 60 votes needed to defeat a GOP filibuster. But Democratic leaders are confident several senior GOP members of the Appropriations Committee will support the measure when a 60-vote threshold is needed, most likely Satuday.

[Associated Press; By ANDREW TAYLOR]

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