Live from the Nuke Free Zone

In this weekend before Thanksgiving, the House served up the Senate
with a great big stuffed turkey called an Omnibus Appropriations Bill.
This more than 1,000 page monstrosity was handed over to the upper
house with just enough time to need to pass it
right now or else the government would run out
of money and shut down for a while, not that many of us would
mind that much except for the fact we’ve got a war going on…

The stuffing is a whole bunch of little riders and line items tacked on
in the hope that no one notices or cares enough to slow down the
bill’s passage. A more than 1,000 page must-pass-now bill
is a great place to hide stuff you want Congress to vote for, but don’t
want Congress to know they’re voting for. It’s also a great place to
tack on little funding riders to bring home the bacon for your
district, such as the $11 billion in porkish amendments found by Arizona’s Senator John McCain. However, sometimes someone actually
tries to read the legislation and finds something they disagree
with, and that’s been the case a few times with this bill.

The rider that’s gotten the most media attention would
override federal and state rules that hospitals receiving federal
funds have to refer patients who want abortions to someone who will
provide them if they won’t, and that health care plans have to pay for
them. That change was tacked on by Illinois Representative Henry Hyde
and
Florida Representative Dave Weldon, who somehow
managed to not become a national laughingstock when he accused his
opponents of being “abortion advocates”. It really didn’t sit
well with our Senator Barbara Boxer or San Francisco Representative
Nancy Pelosi, with the latter denouncing “an extraordinary sneak attack
on women’s rights and a disgraceful display of ideology over health.”
This limited outburst of opposition from the Democratic Party’s
left wing quickly died down when Republicans promised them a vote
on eliminating the provision by March.

What really riled up the Democrats for the first time since the
election, and is hardly getting any press, is an addition from
Oklahoma Representative Ernest Istook allowing some Senate committee
chairs to demand anybody’s tax return from the IRS and release it
to the public. A few hours of ire and filibustering later, Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist agreed to a technical maneuver which
would allow Congress to vote for the bill but require the House
to remove the line item before the bill is sent to Bush to be signed
into law. Frist is now promising to LART Istook, which will probably get it into the news now.

The Democrats got their own riders in, of course, as
one rider
cuts funding for development of low-yield “bunker buster” nuclear
weapons. Also noteable about the bill is a straight 5/6 of 1%
funding cut for most programs not related to national defense.
Finally, the bill passed 65-30
with Democrats evenly splitting 22-23, while most Republicans supported
the bill with several notable exceptions including McCain.
an AP report notes that Americorps
funding was cut by an eighth,
and EPA funding
was increased by 3.5%, surviving the across-the-board funding cut. There are surely plenty more hidden surprises in the great ominbus spending bill. It’s like this every year.