A 1,217-page, $1 trillion spending bill may garner enough votes to keep the federal government running Friday, but it has opened Congress to more ridicule.
The House Appropriations Committee's omnibus bill was released so late that it will require lawmakers to waive their three-day posting rule to vote on it.
Reminiscent of the way Democrats rammed the 2,000-page Obamacare bill through Congress, the spending plan now appears on a fast track to beat a midnight Friday funding deadline.
House Republicans say the last-minute rush was triggered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who they say reneged on a handshake deal earlier in the week.
Though both sides said Thursday that the process appears to be back on track, conservatives are suspicious of the final product.
Weve barely seen the bill; its an awful big bill to get a vote on that fast," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
Some riders got in, some got knocked out, and I dont even know -- and Im on the Appropriations Committee, he said.
Whenever we come to an impasse, our leadership says, we cant shut the government down. We havent had the leverage in any negotiation weve gone into. Thats whats frustrating to me.
Conservative commentator Daniel Horowitz, writing at RedState.com, said Republicans should jump off the omnibus, as they had previously pledged.
"There are already some grumblings about Democrats dropping their demand for tax hikes -- which were never going to happen anyway -- in exchange for a removal of the Keystone pipeline provision.
"If the GOP omnibus truly cuts parts of Obamacare and mandates rescissions from further discretionary spending, Democrats will never pass it. Republicans will wind up compromising yet again, and summarily gut the few positive riders in the bill," Horowitz wrote.
A staffer for a Florida Republican congressman, speaking on background, said the omnibus package was the best available option as the clock ticks down.
"It's easy to armchair quarterback and let Democrats take the blame. But we get the blame," the staffer said.
"You have to think about things like troop pay, the Department of Homeland Security, veterans benefits. You have to have a deal that gets through."
As for Keystone, the staffer noted that the latest veto threat from the White House did not mention the pipeline.
Republicans say they met Democrats more than halfway by going along with 99 weeks of unemployment insurance and another extension of the payroll tax cut, which was demanded by President Obama.
Ultimately, the tax-cut extension drove this latest shutdown showdown.
"The tax code is continually expiring, whether it's the Alternative Minimum Tax, the Bush tax rates, tax credits or any number of extenders for a year at a time," said Mike Franc of the Heritage Foundation.
"It's like renegotiating your mortgage every month. It's hanging over you constantly, so you can no longer do the important things you need to do," Franc said in explaining why Congress appears to be so dysfunctional.
Ever since the government shut down in 1995-96, Franc said the "default mechanism is to not let it happen again. Medicare reimbursements won't be cut. AMT waivers will be extended. The payroll tax cut has been institutionalized."
Thus, taxpayers are ritually treated to what Franc calls "an end-of-session fire drill -- legislative insanity."
As the logjam appeared to be breaking Thursday, the Senate was expected to give final congressional approval to a $662 billion defense bill that contained controversial provisions allowing the administration to prosecute terrorism suspects in civilian courts.
But the last-minute omnibus strategy grates on conservatives.
"I can't vote on a bill I haven't read," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said of the 1,217-page measure. Even House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called it "a travesty."
Though the package cuts $95 billion in spending and contains no earmarks, conservatives pointed to several shortcomings:
- On health care, it cuts funding to the IRS for enforcing the individual mandates of Obamacare, but preserves Obamacare programs.GOP cuts to Planned Parenthood were scuttled.
- On financial reform, it maintains funding for controversial Dodd-Frank regulations.
- On the environment, it jettisons virtually every GOP provision to defund EPA regulations, such as stricter greenhouse gas, clean-air and clean-water regulations.It appropriates $1.5 billion more than the House budget to the EPA, but blocks a new ban on incandescent light bulbs.
Horowitz groused, "We are trying to vote on almost the entire federal budget in one day. We need to pass these bills one-by-one so we can spotlight all the salient issues."
Steve Stanek, of the Heartland Institute, said, "I'm tired of Republicans failing to follow through on their control-government rhetoric when push comes to shove. When the debt ceiling was last raised, a majority of the newly installed tea party caucus voted for the increase, even though nearly all of them had promised not to raise it.
"There's only one way to control the growth in the size and power of government -- and that is to start cutting spending and borrowing. No more slightly slowing future projected increases and calling those cuts," said Stanek, a research fellow for budget and tax policy at the conservative think tank.
In the end, however, Stanek predicted that the pressure to keep the government running and get home for the holidays will grease the skids for the omnibus plan.
"We've been through these games many times before. Lawmakers are policy tinkerers. The goal of both major political parties is to buy votes today with promises that people tomorrow will have to pay for.
"Nothing of substance will change."
Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
