Lame Duck Senate Goes on an Earmark Spree

After looking at the Senate's new $1.1 trillion omnibus bill, one could forget that in November, Americans voted for smaller government and fiscal restraint.

Did the November elections really happen?  Did Americans, in fact, vote for smaller deficits, smaller government, and fiscal restraint?

This was the question Sen. John McCain posed this morning, as the Senate began the task of trying to pass an Omnibus Appropriations Bill for FY11.  It’s a good question.

Even by recent standards this Senate action seems slightly lunatic.  No budget resolution for FY11 passed either body this year.  Not a single appropriations bill was debated on the Senate floor and many were never considered by the relevant sub-committee.  Almost no one except a few senior Senate staffers knows what is in the 2,000 page document.  Estimates put the number of earmarks at more than 6,000 and costing some $8 billion.  Stuck in the bill is a vast expansion of wilderness in Montana, a clear violation of the Senate rules that prohibit putting authorization bills on appropriations.

And, yet, many observers believe that the Omnibus could pass.

The House, in an act of almost monastic purity, passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) for FY11.  Yes, it contains an irrelevant food safety bill, and yes it is more expensive than its proponents admit to.  But, the bill at least attempts to keep spending at current policy levels.  The Senate bill has no such underlying logic—it is truly “the last earmark train coming down the tracks.”

If only for amusement’s sake, it might be nice to watch a House-Senate conference between the House CR and the Senate Omnibus.  Confusion fails as a word to describe such a conference.

Some sophisticated types believe that this entire thing is a plot by Republicans.  These cynics argue that the GOP really wants everything to dissolve into chaos.  This would then lead to a short-term CR expiring, let’s say, in February.  This would give Republicans in the House a chance to then work their tender mercies on FY11 spending through amendment and/or rescission.

If the Senate continues down the path it seems to have chosen, then the GOP will get an early chance next year to validate the notion that elections really did happen in November and those elections have consequences.  For the sake of deficit reduction, one hopes this will be the outcome.  For the sake of cool discussion of budget priorities and fiscal prudence, one hopes that the House CR will prevail and the present Congress gets out of town as soon as possible.