In Defense of Pork: Reid Vows to Fight Obama, GOP on Earmarks

With big spending bill's demise, is 'earmark' new dirty word on Hill?
Deficit hawks and Watchdog groups see Thursday's demise of an omnibus spending bill in the Senate as a turning point. A critical mass of lawmakers, they say, are committed to an earmark ban. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., holds a copy of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington Thursday. There was no last hurrah for Earmarks - known to supporters as “congressionally mandated spending,” and to critics a...

GOP Senate Aide: The Bill Wasnt Going to Be Read
At one point yesterday, according to a Senate Republican leadership aide, Democrats were telling reporters to “watch the floor” for action on the Omnibus Bill. GOP critics had pushed for all 1,924 pages of the Legislation to read aloud by Senate clerks — which would have taken an estimated 50 hours — but Democrats were planning to block this maneuver using a procedural trick. “The bill wasn’t going to be read,” says the Republican aide. “We were go...

House funds government for three days, forcing return next week
House lawmakers on Friday passed a 72-hour Budget fix, forcing members to return next week to finalize a longer-term proposal. House leaders had hoped the Senate could reach an agreement by week's end on a medium-length Budget bill, allowing members of the lower chamber to adjourn for the year. But with no Senate agreement in sight, House leaders chose to pass a three-day continuing resolution (CR) and return Tuesday morning to finalize the deal. The CR was approved by voice vote. Majority Le...

Reid Pulls Controversial $1.2 Trillion Spending Bill in Favor of Short-Term Budget Fix
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., pauses while speaking with the media, after their Senate Democratic Caucus, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, bowing to Republican opposition to a 1,924-page $1.2 Trillion spending measure packed with Earmarks, withdrew the bill and said he would work with Republican leaders on a smaller, short-term Budget fix to avoid a looming government shutdown. The government already is operating on a te...

How They Learned to Start Worrying and Stop Appropriating
The omnibus spending bill died in the Senate last night, and the death was a long time coming. It started to bleed in 2006, when a series of rule changes and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act were passed, opening up the process by which bills were marked up to public scrutiny. It got a good hard kick in December 2009, when President Obama signed that year's omnibus, but only after an angry Speech declaring that the bill had to "mark an end to the old way of doing business a...

Tea Party Shows Its Strength
Harry Reid learned the hard way that the voters will no longer be taken for granted. Although he won re-election over a weak Candidate, he was effectively stripped of his powerful position by the power of Grassroots outrage: The defeat of a pork-laden $1.1 Trillion “omnibus” spending bill in the Senate Thursday night was the first serious indication after the Nov. 2 election that the Tea Party movement has staying power and will be a force into 2011. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill...

Fate of food-safety bill bleak (Politico)
A sweeping Food Safety measure heralded as a rare Senate victory just a few weeks ago looks like it might fall to the cutting room floor, as senators hammer out the details of a resolution to prevent a government shutdown. Aides say Majority Leader Harry Reid must strip down the government funding measure to its bare bones so that the Senate can pass it quickly by unanimous consent and send back to the House, which had attached the food-safety measure to its version of the continuing resolution...

Extension Of Bush Tax Cuts Passes; Pork Laden Spending Bill Goes Down
So I’m sure you’ve heard by now. The House of Representatives passed the bill that will extend the Bush Tax Cuts, renew Unemployment Benefits for 13 months, and cut Social Security taxes for one year late last night. The roll call showed it was a total landslide at 277-148. Democrats had 139 yeas and 112 nays while the Republicans has 138-36 Go here to see the roll call and find out how they voted. The Democrats tried to pass a higher estate tax but that went down in flames also at 2...

GOP on earmarks: I love you, I love you not
In political campaigns, rule No. 1 is never doing anything that ends up hurting your campaign. It’s pretty simple. If you want to attack your opponent for unpaid Parking Tickets, you’d better have paid all yours.   In the earmark-ban era we are in now, Republicans are conflicted by their past support for — wait, I mean drunken spending on — Earmarks. Last week I wrote about reports that the House GOP is considering repealing and replacing its ban on earmarks with something tha

McConnell uncertain GOP can block New START, 'Don't ask, don't tell' repeal
The Senate's top Republican said on Friday he wasn't sure the GOP would have the votes to halt two of Democrats' top legislative items set for action in the closing days of Congress. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressed confidence Republicans would be able to stop the DREAM Act when it comes up for a vote, but was far less certain his party would be able to stop the New START Treaty or a bill to Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." McConnell said Friday on Sean Hannity's conser...

Congress rushes to finish bills before holidays
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., walks to his office on Capi... Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., talks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington... WASHINGTON (AP) - Rushing to finish by Christmas, congressional Democrats worked Friday to secure Senate ratification of a new Arms Control treaty and to end the Military's ban on Openly Gay service members as they neared the end of two tumultuous years of single-party government. Legislation to keep the Federal Government running until mi...

Reid Fights Obama: Earmarks Is What Were Supposed To Do
Preparing for a final showdown on the massive $1.1 Trillion spending bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defended the thousands of Earmarks in the measure as the basic function of Congress. “That’s our job. That‘s what we’re supposed to do,” Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, said as he chastised fellow senators who, while having requested pork-barrel spending earlier this year, are now decrying their inclusion in the spending bill. Mr. Reid challenged those senators to...

Republicans threaten to derail START
Key Senate Republicans are threatening to pull their support of the START nuclear arms treaty because they don’t like the way Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is handling the Senate floor schedule. On the second full day of debate on the treaty, two Republicans — Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and Arizona Sen. John McCain – accused Democrats of playing politics with the treaty by scheduling Saturday votes on Repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy an...

The earmark difference in 2010
Image via Wikipedia Byron York: Press coverage of the Budget frenzy on Capitol Hill has suggested that pork-barrel earmark spending is still a Bipartisan problem, that after months of self-righteous Rhetoric about fiscal discipline, Republicans and Democrats remain equal-opportunity earmarkers. It's not true. A new analysis by a group of federal-spending Watchdogs shows a striking imbalance between the parties when it comes to earmark requests. Democrats remain raging spenders, while Republica...

Harry Reid Pulls Massive Omnibus Spending Bill; Mitch McConnell Reacts Video 12/16/10
Here is video of GOP Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reacting to news that Democrat Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid had pulled the massive $1.1 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill because he did not have the 60-votes for Cloture - which would bring it up for an Up or Down vote. The massive bill was filled with more than 39,000 Earmarks, and was 1,924-pages long . This means some kind of continuing resolution will likely be needed to fund the Government until the new Congress can act in J...

Earmarks, Spending, and the Scope of the Federal Government
The Washington Post reported yesterday that Republican senators were turning their back on a massive spending bill stuffed full of their own Earmarks. Those earmarks, the Post noted, included quite a few to benefit Mississippi, the home state of Senators Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran: Wicker, along with Cochran, had by then already sponsored earmarks in the spending bill that would fund an airport expansion in Tunica ($1.75 million), new riverwalk lights in Columbus ($300,000), improvements to a...

Republicans Stop Pro-Abortion Omnibus Bill as Reid Pulls It
Late Thursday, pro-abortion Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave up on trying to pass the 1.1 Trillion omnibus spending bill that contains numerous goodies for the Abortion industry. After realizing Republicans were unified in opposition to the measure and had enough votes to sustain a Filibuster against it, Reid pulled the Legislation. The move results in yanking more than $1 billion in funding for implementation of the ObamaCare Health Care law that could result in massive Abortion funding. ...

Harry Reid Says Senate Could Finish Saturday
WASHINGTON — The Senate Democratic leader says lawmakers could complete a crowded agenda of a nuclear arms treaty, a spending bill and a Repeal of the ban on Gays in the Military by Saturday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Friday on the Senate floor that the path is clear to finishing the lame-duck session. Reid still needs Republicans to sign on to wrapping up the various pieces of Legislation. Reid scuttled a $1.3 Trillion catchall spending bill Thursday night in favo...

Dems scarce but not the Biden laffs at tax cut bill signing
President Obama signed that big Tax Cut bill today -- promising your first paycheck of next year will be bigger than the one that preceded it. But you know, something was missing from the otherwise routine event. What could it be? Oh, right: there was a notable paucity of Democratic leaders! Paging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid! Hey -- Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell found time to go. Vice President Joe Biden made the introduction. Earlier in the da...

Bad sports Dingy Harry and Fancy Nancy Are No Shows at Obamas Tax Cut Signing Ceremony
  You better not cry, you better not pout… (Politico) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will skip President Obama’s bill-signing ceremony for the tax-cut Compromise at the White House on Friday. Spokespeople for both offices said the Democratic leaders would be taking care of business on the floor of the Senate and the House and wouldn’t be able to make it. “ Senator Reid cannot make every bill signing and right now he is focused on t...

The Tea Party Era Has Begun
So they passed the Tax Cut Compromise. And the fundamental unfairness of it sticks in the craw: the nation is under a great deal of economic stress, yet the Republicans just stuck a gun to the heads of people in distress and said "give us our tax cuts or the country gets it." It's unjust and infuriating. And ultimately depressing because it's clear that Democrats were either complicit in the goal or too strategically clueless to address it before the clock had almost run out. The GOP immediat...

The Tea Party Era Has Begun
The Tea Party Era Has Begun by digby So they passed the Tax Cut Compromise. And the fundamental unfairness of it sticks in the craw: the nation is under a great deal of economic stress, yet the Republicans just stuck a gun to the heads of people in distress and said "give us our tax cuts or the country gets it." It's unjust and infuriating. And ultimately depressing because it's clear that Democrats were either complicit in the goal or too strategically clueless to address it before the clock...

Session Suddenly Not So Lame
It's increasingly apparent that the Congress which hadn't gotten a whole lot done since the enactment of health reform Legislation may well go out with a flurry of genuinely significant activity. The tax deal cleared Congress last night, even as the Senate killed an omnibus appropriations bill leaving most Discretionary Spending decisions to the next session. And it looks like the Repeal of DADT is back on track for a stand-alone vote. Prospects for ratification of START are less robust, but t...

Session Suddenly Not So Lame
It's increasingly apparent that the Congress which hadn't gotten a whole lot done since the enactment of health reform Legislation may well go out with a flurry of genuinely significant activity. The tax deal cleared Congress last night, even as the Senate killed an omnibus appropriations bill leaving most Discretionary Spending decisions to the next session. And it looks like the Repeal of DADT is back on track for a stand-alone vote. Prospects for ratification of START are less robust, but t...

Omnibus Defeat Is a Victory for Reality
I’m glad the Senate came to its senses and killed the omnibus spending monstrosity. That outrageous Trillion-dollar pork buffet was an outright slap in the face to the American public’s expressed wishes in the last election. It was as if Congress was earning its historically low 13 percent Approval Rating before our very eyes. I applaud senators like Jim DeMint, John McCain, and others who fought this and stopped it. However, the very fact that some lawmakers on Capitol Hill tho...