Senate passes ninth emergency spending bill since 9/11
Senate passes ninth emergency spending bill since 9/11
Shailagh Murray, Washington Post
Friday, June 16, 2006
(06-16) 04:00 PDT Washington -- An emergency spending bill to pay for war and storm-recovery costs is headed to President Bush after easily passing the Senate on Thursday.
The 98-1 vote was a rare moment of consensus on a day of anguished debate in both chambers over the Iraq war.
Bush praised Congress for providing funds to "fight terrorism, defend our homeland, enforce our borders, and fulfill our moral obligation to help our fellow Americans in need."
The $94.5 billion emergency bill includes nearly $66 billion for continued operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and nearly $20 billion in disaster assistance for the Gulf Coast. Lawmakers added the $2.3 billion that Bush had sought to combat avian flu and nearly $2 billion to beef up security along the U.S.-Mexico border, including $708 million to deploy National Guard troops.
Faced with a White House veto threat, House and Senate negotiators stripped out $14 billion in unrelated additional funding that the Senate had added to its version of the legislation. But the final bill did include a few unrelated items.
"We've made considerable progress toward limiting unnecessary and wasteful spending," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said in a statement after the vote. "But more can be done."
Though Congress has not resisted Iraq-related costs, which now total nearly $320 billion, lawmakers are increasingly irritated by the White House's reliance on the emergency-spending process. The bill would bring the tally for the campaign in Afghanistan to $89 billion.
The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday night to require that future war funding be factored into the annual federal budgets. The bill approved Thursday was the ninth emergency measure since Sept. 11, 2001 -- all off the books, "as if it were free money," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Emergency bills invite abuse, McCain said, because they are not scrutinized by authorizing committees and become magnets for perks. "We are blowing the budget process. We are carving gigantic holes in the system," McCain said.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., voted against the bill. He is opposed to a provision endorsing Bush's $873 billion "cap" on the annual appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. Specter is pushing for $7 billion in additional money for education and health programs. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.V., did not vote.
Final action on the bill was welcomed by Gulf Coast lawmakers, especially relatively junior Louisiana delegation members who felt their Katrina-devastated state was shortchanged in a similar measure in December.
The bill contains $3.7 billion for Louisiana flood-control projects, and Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and GOP colleague David Vitter are confident their state will receive $4.2 billion of $5.2 billion contained in the bill for direct grants to states. Louisiana plans to use its share to repair and rebuild housing stocks.
"Many people didn't have insurance because they weren't in a floodplain," Landrieu said. "And then the levees broke, and people, middle-income families, wealthy families and poor families lost the largest asset they had."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Shailagh Murray, Washington Post
Friday, June 16, 2006
(06-16) 04:00 PDT Washington -- An emergency spending bill to pay for war and storm-recovery costs is headed to President Bush after easily passing the Senate on Thursday.
The 98-1 vote was a rare moment of consensus on a day of anguished debate in both chambers over the Iraq war.
Bush praised Congress for providing funds to "fight terrorism, defend our homeland, enforce our borders, and fulfill our moral obligation to help our fellow Americans in need."
The $94.5 billion emergency bill includes nearly $66 billion for continued operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and nearly $20 billion in disaster assistance for the Gulf Coast. Lawmakers added the $2.3 billion that Bush had sought to combat avian flu and nearly $2 billion to beef up security along the U.S.-Mexico border, including $708 million to deploy National Guard troops.
Faced with a White House veto threat, House and Senate negotiators stripped out $14 billion in unrelated additional funding that the Senate had added to its version of the legislation. But the final bill did include a few unrelated items.
"We've made considerable progress toward limiting unnecessary and wasteful spending," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said in a statement after the vote. "But more can be done."
Though Congress has not resisted Iraq-related costs, which now total nearly $320 billion, lawmakers are increasingly irritated by the White House's reliance on the emergency-spending process. The bill would bring the tally for the campaign in Afghanistan to $89 billion.
The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday night to require that future war funding be factored into the annual federal budgets. The bill approved Thursday was the ninth emergency measure since Sept. 11, 2001 -- all off the books, "as if it were free money," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Emergency bills invite abuse, McCain said, because they are not scrutinized by authorizing committees and become magnets for perks. "We are blowing the budget process. We are carving gigantic holes in the system," McCain said.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., voted against the bill. He is opposed to a provision endorsing Bush's $873 billion "cap" on the annual appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. Specter is pushing for $7 billion in additional money for education and health programs. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.V., did not vote.
Final action on the bill was welcomed by Gulf Coast lawmakers, especially relatively junior Louisiana delegation members who felt their Katrina-devastated state was shortchanged in a similar measure in December.
The bill contains $3.7 billion for Louisiana flood-control projects, and Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and GOP colleague David Vitter are confident their state will receive $4.2 billion of $5.2 billion contained in the bill for direct grants to states. Louisiana plans to use its share to repair and rebuild housing stocks.
"Many people didn't have insurance because they weren't in a floodplain," Landrieu said. "And then the levees broke, and people, middle-income families, wealthy families and poor families lost the largest asset they had."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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posted by Walking Contradiction at 6/17/2006 04:10:00 AM
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