SSA Advocacy Group
The Senate Appropriation Committee released a proposed Omnibus Bill today. Some details on this bill are contained in a Washington Post article below. The Labor HHS Subcommittee did put out a 7 page Press Release on their part of the bill (see attached). On the last page (page 7) it covers SSA. The language proposes $882 Million more than SSA’s budget for FY 10. This is about $50 less than the proposed increase by the President. However SSA is also not having to absorb the pay increase which we believe is around $64M. Of course a proposal of $882 million more for SSA is very good news. But whether the overall omnibus gets passed by the Senate is another matter as there will need to be some Republican support.
If Omnibus can’t be pass, then it looks like a short term or long term CR will happen. The House has already passed a yearlong CR which gives SSA $440 million that the FY 2010 budget.
The nearly 2,000 plus page full
bill can be viewed at this link
http://appropriations.senate.gov/news.cfm?method=news.view&id=9ac3518e-7e19-4328-bf52-16a6c2a1d333
SSA’s language is on pages 1080-1086.
Senate spending bill contains thousands of earmarks
By Philip Rucker
Tuesday, December 14, 2010; 4
Senate Democrats released a massive spending bill Tuesday that contains money for thousands of lawmakers' pet projects, setting up a fierce debate over so-called earmarks in the waning days of the lame-duck congressional session.
Leaders of the Appropriations Committee combined a dozen spending bills into a single measure with more than $1.2 trillion in appropriations to fund the federal government for a full year. The committee said the bill is $29 billion below the budget proposed by President Obama.
The House took a different approach this month in passing an alternative spending bill, known as a "continuing resolution," that would keep funding level through September and contains no congressional earmarks.
"The 12 bills included in this package fulfill the Congress's most basic responsibility, to exercise the power of the purse." Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Tuesday. He added, "While I appreciate the work that the House has done in producing a full year Continuing Resolution, I do not believe that putting the government on autopilot for a full year is in the best interest of the American people."
Many Senate Republicans, however, have said they would prefer such a temporary stopgap measure, which would hand responsibility to the Congress that will be sworn in next month to pass more permanent spending bills. But Inouye and other Senate Democrats will try to pass the omnibus bill in lieu of the continuing resolution.
Lawmakers said the 1,924-page omnibus bill contains thousands of earmarks - the total cost of which was not immediately clear - and would renew a debate over pork-barrel politics. Last month, Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who had been a longtime earmark supporter, endorsed a moratorium on earmarks to send a signal that the GOP is serious about curbing federal spending.
Critics of earmarks said the bill released Tuesday represents a last hurrah for lawmakers steering money to their pet projects before the arrival in January of dozens of tea party-backed Republicans intent on ending the practice.
"It's clearly a case of total amnesia on the part of the appropriators and a direct repudiation of the message of November 2nd," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview. "I know that it's 2,000 pages, and everybody knows what we need to do is a clean, continuing resolution and let the new Congress address these issues. It's really outrageous."
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), another earmark critic, called the bill "egregious."
"I just hope Republicans will stick together against the process and the bill itself," DeMint told reporters. "We need a good, clean [continuing resolution] for a couple of months and go home and let the new Congress do this the right way. I hope Republicans won't help them take home the bacon one last time."
Senators could vote on the bill as early as Thursday, but it was unclear whether Inouye has the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster. Some moderate Republicans have supported earmarks in the past, and at least one, retiring Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), said he was inclined to vote for the bill.
"I have a disagreement with my colleagues on earmarks," Voinovich told reporters. "Earmarks really don't add to the cost of government. What it does is it says that the money's going to be spent for something else. We're fooling the American people when we tell them the problem [with the deficit] is earmarks."
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he, too, would likely support the bill containing earmarks.
"I've got too many people that need water, sewer, roads, bridges, basic necessities of life that other people take for granted, so my goodness, why wouldn't you fight for the basic necessities that your citizens need?" Manchin said in an interview.
ruckerp@washpost.com Staff writer Paul Kane contributed to this report.