House GOP mobilizes against omnibus bill

House Republicans launched a public relations blitz Monday, condemning the Democratic omnibus spending bill and urging their members to vote against it.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the legislation “troubling and unacceptable,” charging that Democrats were planning to “pile billions in worthless pork onto the backs of our troops.” The House was debating the bill at press time.

{mosads}House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) criticized the legislation for its “misguided policy decisions” and noted that it does not include funding for the troops.

After the bill was unveiled on the Rules Committee website late on Sunday night, Republican staffers made phone calls and sent e-mails to their colleagues about the bill and how they plan to shape and coordinate their opposition to it.

Aides on the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) mobilized Sunday evening and stayed up through the night to comb through the bill’s 3,565 pages, looking for what they perceived as wasteful spending.

RSC Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) chided Democrats for failing to include Iraq funding in the bill, calling the decision “an absolute disgrace.”

Meanwhile, The Heritage Foundation has launched a website at http://omnibusting.com to serve as a virtual clearing house for Capitol Hill staff and members to post updates. The site at press time featured a running tally of earmarks and a reformatted searchable version of the omnibus bill.

“We want to make sure that people understand what they are voting on,” said Heritage Foundation official Robert Bluey. “The more that is out there the more information a member might have before voting [on the bill].”

Some of the provisions culled from the bill and posted on the site in the first few hours included $1.95 million for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York; $395 million in USAID money for areas where people “threaten” biodiversity and endangered species (dubbed the “Endangered Human Earmark”); $853,000 for coffee and cocoa production in Maryland; $527,000 to deal with invasive aquatic weeds; $2.34 million for the Maui Community College Remote Rural Hawaii Job Training Project; and $113,000 for rodent control in Alaska.

According to an RSC brief and Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) office, 9,241 earmarks were included in the bill.

Democrats are also not enamored with their bill.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) released a statement Monday morning calling the bill “inadequate” and criticized the president for being unrealistic about the domestic needs of the country.

 “The omnibus appropriations bill is totally inadequate to meet the long term investment needs of the country, but it is a whole lot better than the country would have without a Democratic Congress,” he said. “Unlike last year, when the previous Republican Congress failed to complete any of its work on domestic funding bills, we are recognizing that in an adult world, we have an obligation to the country to complete our budget work and move on.”

A spokesman for Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) said Lewis would not vote for the House version of the bill because of the lack of troop funding.

 “He won’t decide on the final version until it is brought back from the Senate,” Lewis spokesman Jim Specht said.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) rallied Republicans last week, encouraging them to work as a unit to block Democratic bills that they believe would raise taxes, hurt the economy and exceed President Bush’s budget.

Monday’s flurry of press releases and rancor comes with the approaching holidays creating a sense of urgency that Republicans could capitalize on in order to further embarrass the Democratic majority, which last week caved to President Bush’s spending demands.

During a speech in Fredericksburg, Va., on Monday, Bush suggested he will not sign a bill that includes accounting gimmicks and floated the possibility that Congress pass a yearlong continuing resolution.

“If the Congress can’t get the job done … then I’ve got a suggestion for them, and just pass a one-year continuing resolution,” he said.  “That’s all they’ve got to do. If they can’t get the job done, like I’m hopeful they will, then all they’ve got to do is just take what’s called a continuing resolution, get the people’s business done that way and go on home. They’ve got to make sure they fund the troops, though, on the way out of town.”

Democratic leaders quickly released responses to Bush’s suggestion and dismissed his comments as “rhetoric” and “out of touch.”

“President Bush clearly seems to believe his own rhetoric on the economy – without regard to the facts,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a release.  “The truth is, the economic insecurity gripping millions of American families from coast to coast is very real, with consumers being forced to contend with exploding gas prices, healthcare costs and college costs.”