The Senate worked late into the evening Thursday to wrap up spending $18.2 billion to pay for 60 more days of unemployment benefits and COBRA health benefits, and also to ensure doctors don't face a 21 percent cut in their reimbursement payments from the government. The price tag for the bill is being added to our debt, thanks primarily to the Democrats in Congress. Several efforts to pay for the tab for this 60-day extension were made by Republican senators to no avail. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK made his attempts after several minutes of compelling debate centered on the federal government's spending spree. In his statement, he pointedout that as of the end of last year, our government had a total of $676 billion of borrowed money on its books. Yep, we borrow this money, pay interest on it, and it just sits in various accounts.
Sen. Coburn had the crazy idea to use this money to pay for the next 60 days of unemployment benefits. However, that effort and those of other GOP senators failed, mostly on party-line votes. One vote that did prevail was an amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-AZ. His amendment was non-binding but expressed opposition to the value-added tax being kicked around by some Democrats in DC as a way to pay for our out-of-control spending. The disapproval of the VAT idea was passed by a
vote of 85 to 13, causing the entire bill to be sent back to the House for its concurrence. The House agreed to the changes in the bill Thursday, and President Barack Obama is expected to sign it soon.
The House side of the U.S. Capitol was a bit more quite this week, with little being done on the floor of the House and most of the fireworks occurring in various closed-door meetings. As I mentioned in an
earlier column, members of Congress are returning from their spring break whinnying about their reelection problems and not wanting to cast any politically tough votes between now and the November election. This consternation is causing the Democratic leadership to struggle to make decisions as to how to pass the budget resolution as well as other Obama agenda items. To add to the leadership's gun shy membership problems, four House republicans publicly announced this week that although they supported the Cap and Trade bill that passed last June, they will now vote against it if it were to come back up for a vote in the U. S. House of Representatives. These four House members are Mike Castle, R-DE, Mark Kirk, R-IL, Chris Smith, R-NJ and Leonard Lance, R-NJ. The
vote to pass the bill last June was 219 to 212. If my math is correct, and given a few deaths and early retirements that have occurred in the House since last June, I am guessing that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now understanding that she no longer has the votes to pass a Cap and Trade bill again in Congress.
So while the spending spree continues in DC, many major decisions as to how to construct a budget for Congress to follow for this next fiscal year remain elusive at best. Hold on to your wallets, Congress is back in town!
Stay tuned.
Elizabeth B. Letchworth is a former four-times elected United States Senate Secretary for the Majority and Minority (retired). She is currently the owner of GradeGov.com.
