House and Senate Democrats have decided to complete this year’s unfinished appropriations process with a joint resolution keeping the government funded until the new fiscal year starts in October, vowing to ban all earmarks from the measure.
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), the incoming Appropriations Committee chairmen, issued a statement yesterday laying blame at the feet of departing GOP leaders for failing to pass nine of the 11 fiscal year 2007 appropriations bills, a criticism leveled by several Republicans in the waning days of the lame-duck session.
“After discussions with our colleagues, we have decided to dispose of the Republican budget leftovers by passing a year-long joint resolution,” Byrd and Obey said, adding: “We will do our best to make whatever limited adjustments are possible within the confines of the Republican budget to address the nation’s most important policy concerns.”
Democrats had faced mounting pressure to forge a plan for completing the outstanding appropriations bills quickly, with several appropriators appearing inclined toward an omnibus that would combine versions of the spending bills already approved in committee. Yet members of the new majority acknowledged the difficult task of crafting an earmark-free omnibus that would avoid potential objections from conservatives and GOP appropriators.
“The thing is, one person’s earmark, wasteful spending, [when] defined by the person who’s proposing it, is neither pork nor wasteful,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who will rejoin the Appropriations panel next year. “It’s a question of how you define these things.”
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), in line to take over the appropriations subcommittee in charge of the Justice and State departments, said last week that Democrats should apply principles of reform to whatever spending legislation they take up next year.
“I certainly think we should do an omnibus, within the context of ethics and special projects reform, that would also include the Finance Committee and Appropriations,” Mikulski said.
Conservatives who argued that a post-election omnibus would be fiscally irresponsible ultimately convinced Republican leadership to pursue a continuing resolution that would keep the government running until Feb. 15, leaving Democrats the burden of finishing the job. As late as the last day of the 109th Congress, Republican appropriators were urging Democrats to do the procedurally improbable and try to take up the remaining bills individually.
“Democrats are going to have to work with us and do something to repair the situation … The pressure is going to be to pass free-standing appropriations bills,” said Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), an appropriations subcommittee “cardinal” whose energy and water bill passed the full panel in June but did not get to the floor.
Domenici made an impassioned plea for the Democratic leadership to handle lawmakers critical of spending levels or earmarks by seeking cloture votes to shut off debate rather than negotiating behind the scenes.
“Make them fight on the floor instead of fight from a distance,” he said. “No more ‘I object.’ Come to the floor and let’s vote. They’ll pretty soon find out they will lose. They will lose to the Senate.”
But Democrats faced an already crowded winter schedule, headlined by the president’s budget in early February and a hefty war supplemental expected to approach $150 billion for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, that made even an omnibus nearly impossible to achieve on time. Producing a continuing resolution scrubbed of earmarks is likely to present its own partisan pitfalls for the new leadership, as members on both sides of the aisle grapple with district projects planned for but no longer paid for.
Byrd and Obey, in their statement, promised to work on a bipartisan basis to secure passage for the coming spending resolution. Earmarks in this year’s appropriations bills will be candidates for inclusion during the 2008 process, they said, “subject to new standards for transparency and accountability.”
Democrats have not hidden their frustration at the GOP’s inaction on appropriations, with Senate leadership distributing a 15-page memo titled “The 110th Congress Will Be Left to Clean Up the 109th Congress’ Mess” on Friday that charged Republicans had made it more difficult for the new majority to make early progress on its broad legislative agenda.
“One could get mad, but I’m going to try not to. I’m going to try to be patient,” incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters last week. He echoed Byrd and Obey’s intentions to rein in the explosive growth of earmarks, which many Republicans believe shattered their fiscally conservative image.
The House passed an earmark disclosure resolution in September that required appropriations, tax and authorizing bills to identify the members requesting earmarks, though watchdog groups blasted the measure as defining the term too narrowly. The tax, trade and health omnibus that passed just before the 109th Congress adjourned contained three earmarks and two “probable earmarks,” according to the House resolution, and two of those five were requested by Reid.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the new Senate leadership would work to pass an earmark transparency requirement quickly, as part of Democrats’ broad ethics and lobbying reform package, and in time to apply to the 2008 appropriations bills.
Longtime House Appropriations Committee staff director Scott Lilly, now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said none of the available options would have been preferable for Democrats.
“You’re going to end up with something that’s not good policy no matter what you do,” he said. “But given the mess we’re in, it’s how you reduce the damage to public policy and not mortgage the future…”
The tax-writing committees, Finance and House Ways and Means, may extend earmark-like “special privileges” to companies seeking targeted breaks, although September’s House resolution defined an earmark as a tax benefit aimed at a single entity. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said his panel has long operated under an informal rule against considering tax provisions affecting fewer than 10 companies, adding that incoming Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is likely to continue that guideline.
