Two hundred and thirty-seven years ago last night, a group of colonists disguised as Indians boarded British merchant ships and dumped an estimated £10,000 worth of tea into Boston Harbor. This Boston Tea Party, which John Adams described as the “grandest event which has ever yet happened since the controversy with Britain opened,” was not just a protest about taxation. Our forefathers did not destroy tea because of a simple tax dispute. The 1773 Tea Party were protesting the process by which the British government taxed them. They were fundamentally …
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 …
Gallup released a poll this morning showing that the American people dislike this 111th Congress more than any other Congress. Specifically, a full 83% of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job while only 13% approve. That is the worst approval rating in more than 30 years of tracking congressional job performance. Why do Americans so despise this Congress? The reckless way it spends other people’s money, for starters. One would have thought that after getting “shellacked” at the polls this November, Congress would have gotten the …
While most eyes in Washington are on the massive health care reform bills, Congress is ever so slowly making policy changes via other legislative vehicles, including the Omnibus Appropriations bill being readied for enactment before December 18. This Omnibus Appropriations bill includes six of the 13 annual spending bills the Congress must approve to keep federal agencies running, and it commits $447 billion to a variety of program increases – bringing the new spending total for non-defense, non-veterans discretionary programs to a level 85 percent higher than just two years …
Congressional leadership has unveiled an a $446.8 billion “minibus” that will cover six annual appropriations bills, leaving only the defense bill to pass separately. Assuming these bills pass, discretionary spending will have jumped by 8 percent for the third consecutive year since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007. In those three years, regular discretionary spending has jumped 25 percent, from $873 billion to $1,090 billion. But that’s not all. The recent stimulus bill provided an additional $311 billion in “emergency” discretionary spending. Altogether, the last three Congressional Democratic …
This is what happens when Congress passes bills that nobody has time to read. As it turns out, on the last page of the recently passed “Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009” was language that clarified the end date for E-Verify. There has been much confusion regarding whether the Department of Homeland Security could continue operating E-Verify to September 30, 2009 or would have had to shut it down yesterday. While DHS felt that they could extend E-Verify until September the different end dates for the program in the FY 2009 appropriations …
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) ought to be commended for exposing the left’s commitment to reforming the way Washington does business as nothing more than empty rhetoric. Last night Coburn forced votes on two amendments to the $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill that forced liberal Senators to approve of $10 million in earmarks for the clients of a now-disbanded lobbying firm under federal investigation and another $16 million in earmarks for water-taxi services and manure management. But what if the left in the Senate had called his bluff? What if they …
Omnibus spending bills are typically end-of-the-year bills laden with wasteful earmarks and specific pet projects that cost the taxpayer billions of dollars. Because of the stimulus bill Congress pushed Omnibus legislation for the fiscal year 2009 into February with a vote in the House expected to come this week and a vote in the Senate the following week. Since most Members of Congress have some stake in the game, these bills always tend to pass despite public outcries to curb unnecessary government spending. But this time, it could end up …
1082 pages. $3 billion in earmarks. At least 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil off limits. Congress is at it again. In an attempt to squeeze an omnibus package during the lame-duck session, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid said that beginning November 17th a debate over a public lands bill that includes 160 pieces of legislation will take place. The bill contains ridiculous earmarks such as $3.5 million to celebrate the 450th birthday of St. Augustine Florida in 2015 and $5 million on …
How can Congress both fight wasteful pork barrel spending and support our troops all at the same time? By backing Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) new bill the Semper Fi Act of 2008 which rescinds over $2 million in hidden earmarks for Berkeley, California in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill, and transfer the funds to the Marine Corps. DeMint’s bill restores sanity to our nation’s priorities by denying $243,000 in taxpayer dollars to the five star restaurant Chez Panisse to prepare gourmet organic lunches for the Berkeley School District. Among other …
