Update – 9:00PM: Earlier this evening, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) decided against proceeding with the omnibus bill, promising instead to pursue a short-term continuing resolution. As we reported this week, Congress is considering a new $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill. This 2,000 page monster is the result of a refusal by Congress to pass a budget and a partisan desire to bind the hands of the next Congress with an expansive spending bill rather than a short-term continuing resolution. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) office has demonstrated how a simple, one-page …
Yet another controversy involving Congressional earmarks is brewing in Washington. This time around a lobbying firm, the PMA group (raided by the FBI in November), is accused of making fraudulent donations to members of Congress in exchange for federal pork directed toward their clients. Given mounting news reports of scandal involving earmarks, you’d think Members of Congress would jump at the opportunity to prove they’re clean. You’d be wrong. Two illuminating pieces of pork legislation were passed by the House yesterday. The first vote, the 2009 Omnibus appropriations bill, churned …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKzZJoPu1OQ[/youtube] Some worried D.C. schoolchildren recently asked President Obama to continue the highly successful D.C . Opportunity Scholarship Program. The program, which allows parents the choice to to take their children out of failing public schools, is in danger of being scrapped completely after the 2010 school year. Ignoring the pleas of these children and others, a measure hidden in the omnibus spending bill effectively eliminates this program. It would make it so the funds have to be reauthorized by Congress as well as approved by the D.C. Council, providing a …
