Now that Omnipork Is Dead, What Happens Next?
The massive $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill, a nearly 2,000-page monstrosity which contained 6,714 earmarks worth about $8.3 billion, was yanked back by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Thursday night as it became clear the votes to pass it just did not exist.
A short-term “continuing resolution,” which would fund the government through February, would now seem to be the only option.
Reid said on the floor of the Senate that he had had assurances from nine Republicans that they would vote for the bill — and that all of them, whom he declined to name, walked away from the bill.
Now Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Reid will be working together to come up with the continuing resolution which will allow the Republican House to revisit spending after the first of the year.
McConnell said after the bill was pulled back that this was the “first time in modern history … that not a single appropriations bill went across the Senate floor.”
McConnell went on to say the Appropriations Committee had, in a bipartisan way, done its job but the full Senate had not:
And so what we ended up with, Mr. President (of the Senate), was this, this almost 2,000 page omnibus appropriation bill which we only got, it was yesterday? Yesterday. And so the point here is the work that the Appropriations Committee did in many respects was squandered because the full senate didn’t do its job. And this is precisely the kind of thing the American people have gotten tired of.
According to Oklahoma Senator Dr. Tom Coburn the C.R. is the preferable option.
Among other things, Coburn takes issue with the $8.3 billion worth of earmarks included in the legislation — earmarks his spokesman John Hart said Thursday are the “gateway drug of spending addiction.”
Hart said Coburn’s hope is very straightforward.
What Coburn is calling for, Hart said, is a freeze of spending levels at the 2008 level. Something the Wall Street Journal says 80 percent of the nation would support. That $8.3 billion, by the way, is roughly half the difference between the dead spending bill and what was spent in 2008.
I fascinate at what appears the Republicans are not as smart on the Constitution as The devil in the White House and therefore can not protect the American People and the devil has an open track taking us to hell.
This metrosexual twerp president will never drag ME to hell.
How odd that so many in Congress have forgotten how much trouble and strife they cause just by even getting into office; especially since it is still very little trouble to get them out — ultimately, removal by any means possible may just amount to a 27¢ each FMJ.
The fast-talkers don’t seem to be listening to what they are saying, or see the growing rage, being blind to earnest protests: there can no longer be reason to think that people will be crushed by multiple crises meant to divide them.
In the real America, oppression brings Unity not fear — our Constitution is not just the law of the land, it is a warning to all petty despots at home and abroad. What happens next will not be from the plans of the likes of Alinskys or the Kennedys.
Now is not the time to recycle garbage but to finally throw it out.
We need spending cuts, not a spending freeze. The Feds spend too much which is causing the inflation they say does not exist. Have you seen food and gas prices?
The repubs , in the new year,need to set up a constitution committee.It’s job would be FIRSTLY to look at all Bills before any voting, and assess if they are allowable under the constitution of America.If not,then it doesn’t go forward. SIMPLE.
I somehow get the feeling that Congressmen and women don’t really know about the Constitution, and its meaning. Perhaps a bit of training is needed.This would only elevate those who took it in the eyes of general Americans.