House passes omnibus spending bill

The House passed its omnibus spending bill Monday night in two separate votes.

The lower chamber first voted 253-154 to clear the omnibus spending measure and then voted 206-201 to add $31 billion for troops in Afghanistan.

{mosads}In the first vote, 41 Republicans supported the measure while 8 Democrats voted no. Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) voted present. While some GOP appropriators voted yes, House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) opposed the spending bill.

The Afghanistan measure attracted 18 Democratic no votes and the backing of five Republicans.

Republicans attacked the omnibus package, pointing out that many earmarks were “airdropped” into the bill at the last moment. They also were critical of Democratic leadership’s decision not to include Iraq war funding in the measure. Those funds are expected to be added by the Senate.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a vocal critic of earmarks, said a few of the airdropped earmarks simply seek to allocate money to cities without explanation.

Flake rattled off the names of cities and how much the bill will allocate to those locales.

“For what?” Flake asked. “We have no idea.”

In his closing remarks, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) called the bill “the major domestic achievement of the Congress for the year,” but called the measure inadequate. He blamed President Bush and the Senate for forcing the bill to be scaled back.

Obey said there were two messages that voters sent in November 2006: end the war in Iraq and change the nation’s priorities.

“We’ve struggled mightily to bring about both,” Obey said. “We’ve failed because of two reasons: not enough votes in the Senate” and the president’s decision not to compromise with the Democratic-led Congress.

Obey explained Democrats have 51 votes in the upper chamber and that the Senate’s “peculiar” rules call for controversial bills to attract 60 votes.