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House leaders unveil 2012 spending bill
1/3/2012 10:13:40 AM
By Vicki Needham - 12/15/11 12:51 AM ET
House leaders introduced a spending bill before midnight Wednesday that would fund the government through 2012 in defiance of Senate Democrats.
House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) introduced the measure, which is separate from the pending House-Senate conference report — that includes the final nine spending bills at a price tag of around $1 trillion.
The House GOP is moving forward with the legislation after arguing that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) isn't allowing Democrats to sign off on a House-Senate conference report in an effort to pressure Republicans into agreeing to a payroll tax extension bill.
The House Rules Committee has added the bill to its Thursday agenda although a hearing time isn't set yet.
Sending the bill is a clear sign leaders are moving forward with a plan to counter Reid's blocking of the conference report.
“This final legislation is the outcome of tough negotiations and meaningful, bipartisan compromise," Rogers said in a statement. "As is the case in any successful agreement, not everyone got everything they wanted. But, this is a good bill that strikes a reasonable balance between reduced spending, wise federal investments, and policy changes that American businesses need to thrive."
The White House, on the other hand, is pressing Congress to pass a short-term measure to fund the government as an agreement is worked out on the payroll, unemployment and Medicare "doc fix" bill.
"The president continues to have significant concerns about a number of provisions that have been reported to be in the Republican agreement on the omnibus," said Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director in a statement Thursday night.
"This includes provisions that would undermine Wall Street reforms, enact extreme social and ideological riders, undercut environmental protections, and threaten the foreign policy prerogatives of the president," he said.
"Given the magnitude of the legislation — providing over $1 trillion dollars in funding — coupled with the unresolved payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance extension, Congress should pass a short-term continuing resolution as it has seven times already this year so that all parties have an appropriate opportunity to consider and complete all of the critical budget and economic issues necessary to finish our responsibilities for the year."
House and Senate Republicans have said a short-term bill isn't necessary because the omnibus is ready.
On Tuesday, Reid said there were still six or seven outstanding issues to be resolved.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said “it’s pretty clear to all of us that President Obama and Senator Reid want to threaten a government shutdown so that they can get leverage on a jobs bill.”
He reiterated that a deal had been struck on the omnibus but Obama and Reid were holding it up.
"So I’m hopeful that the president and Senator Reid will allow the appropriators to sign the conference report and allow that bill to come to a vote in the House and Senate,” he said.
Boehner said no decisions had been made as to whether the House would seek to pass the omnibus on its own with Republican votes.
The biggest problem is that the GOP might be unable to pass this bill with Republican votes alone.
If House Democrats stick together with Senate Democrats, Boehner would have to corral some of the 50 conservative members of his conference who have vowed to oppose appropriations bills based on the August debt-ceiling deal framework.
A second problem is that a conference report can be brought up in the Senate quickly, while a separate bill would be subject to amendments and a filibuster threat.
On top of this, appropriators are worried that the tactic could leave the omnibus text out in the public for too long, giving time for K Street lobbyists to attack it before it gets approved.
If the $1 trillion omnibus bill is not approved by midnight Friday, a government shutdown would happen.
"There is no reason for the government to shut down," said Kenneth Baer, director of the Office of Management and Budget communications.
"Congress can avoid a shutdown by passing an acceptable omnibus spending bill as well as an extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits — or by passing another short-term CR as Congress has done seven times already this year," he said.
Source:
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/appropriations/199567-house-leaders-drop-omnibus-spending-bill-
Omnibus reflects hard-fought compromises
By Erik Wasson - 12/15/11 06:28 AM ET The text of the $1 trillion omnibus spending package introduced early Thursday represents hard-fought compromises between Republicans and Democrats in which each side scored victories.
Legislators will likely only have until Friday to decide whether they support the giant package.
The GOP was able to get a number of key provisions, including some defunding of Obama's healthcare reform and Wall Street reform initiatives. Democrats were able to keep the vast majority of policy riders, including most of those relating to the environment, out of the bill.
Senate Democratic leadership says they are not signing onto the fact that the bill prohibits the District of Columbia from spending money on abortions, that it prohibits a forced national transition from incandescent light bulbs and that it blocks family travel to Cuba.
All of the nine remaining annual appropriations bills are included in the bill. The base price tag is $915 billion, with an extra $115 billion in war funding for the military and $11 billion in war funding for the State department.
To keep the top-line spending number under the 2012 spending cap of $1.043 trillion, including the $128 billion minibus package that passed Congress in November, appropriators have put $8.1 billion for disaster aid in a separate bill. Under the debt-ceiling agreement, up to $11.3 billion in disaster aid could have been added to the spending cap.
On healthcare reform, the GOP wins by having a provision in the Financial Services bill that prevents the Internal Revenue Service from spending any money to implement healthcare reform in 2012. The individual mandate to buy insurance, enforced by tax penalties, starts in 2014 but the IRS was spending money before then to hire and train personnel.
The same bill rescinds $25 million from a Securities and Exchange Commission reserve fund to be used to implement Wall Street reform.
The GOP also wins in that the bill terminates a renewable energy program that gave funds to the bankrupt Solyndra solar energy company and forces the administration to expedite plans for offshore oil and gas drilling.
It also contains funding for D.C. Opportunity Scholarships, prohibits administration 'czars,' prohibits funding for needle exchange programs, and cuts President Obama's Race to the Top schools initiative by 20 percent.
The GOP also secured a provision to prohibit Health and Human Services from promoting gun control and which prohibits a Labor department rule on coal dust.
On abortion, the sides found compromise. Existing pro-life riders are in the bill, but cuts to Planned Parenthood and a global gag rule prventing non-governmental organizations from discussing abortion are not. Funding for the U.N. Population Fund is cut but not eliminated.
The Environmental Protection Agency sees its funding cut, but not drastically. The cut is $233 million from 2011 levels.
On the other hand, the State Department and foreign assistance takes a sizeable reduction in the bill. It comes in at nearly $9 billion below Obama's request and $6 billion below 2011. Bilateral aid is cut by $2.2 billion, a reflection of its lack of public support.
Pell Grants are another area of compromise. The level of the scholarships is maintained but eligibility is cut over time leading to $11 billion in savings over 10 years.
The bill also delays the collapse of the Postal Service by postponing until August mandated benefit payments.
