While you weren't watching and while most of congress was busy with other things Nancy and her cronies in the Democrat party threw together a budget bill for $630B, which contains $19.1B in earmarks into a budget bill that had to be approved or else government would have ground to a halt. At this point what is the downside of our government grinding to a halt?
The 2008 budget year ended yesterday, but Congress hasn't approved a single one of a dozen annual appropriations bills needed to keep the federal government functioning on a day-to-day basis. Hence the $630 billion stop-gap measure, nearly the size of the failed Wall Street bailout. It passed the House on a 370-68 vote even though, as Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., candidly admitted, "very few people have any idea what's in it." Cornered House members had less than 24 hours to review the 357-page bill and 752 pages of accompanying material before being forced to either pass it - or shut down most of the federal government today.
One thing the continuing resolution is full of is earmarks, none of which were debated or voted on in public. The House Budget Committee's final tally is 2,760 earmarks totaling $19.1 billion (including presidential requests). None were publicly vetted through the regular legislative process or even posted on the committee's web site prior to the vote. And, since this temporary spending bill expires in five months, the whole dysfunctional process will begin anew in March – unless there’s a major shakeup of Congress in November.
When does it end? Do all of these lawmakers suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and simply can't resist putting earmarks into everything?
For even more earmark craziness go here and look at the growing list of earmarks being put into the Senate version of the finance bailout package.
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