Here are more details. The race is one to dramicaly increase descresionary spending. They hated it when bush kept it at around 1% increase. Oh BTW Offshore Drilling Ban. Imagine that. Also, let end the successful school voucher program in DC. In the minds of the Dems, we need to keep blacks dumb and uneducated so that we can continue to control them.
Democrats Unveil $410 Billion "Omnibus" Spending Bill (Update2)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=akuG0BtbSKsc&refer=u s[/align][/align]
By Brian Faler
Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. embargo on Cuba would be loosened, regulatory agencies would get budget increases and lawmakers would secure money for thousands of pet projects known as earmarks under a proposed $410 billion spending bill.
The "omnibus" spending package
unveiled today by House Democrats would combine nine annual appropriations bills left over from last year that are needed to fund programs such as NASA and the national parks through September, the end of the fiscal year. Total spending on the programs would grow by $32 billion, or about 8.5 percent, from last year.
The House plans to vote on the measure later this week, and the Senate will consider it later.
Democrats postponed work on the appropriations bills last year after they were unable to reach an agreement with former President
George W. Bush on how much to spend on domestic programs. Bush had demanded lawmakers freeze most domestic spending. Most federal agencies, except those related to defense, have been funded by a stopgap measure that expires March 6.
House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, called the new bill "the unfinished business of last year when the president refused to address the priorities and the needs of the American people."
The measure was released as President
Barack Obama pledged at a budget summit to cut the government"s yearly budget deficit in half in four years. The White House and Congressional Budget Office forecast the deficit for this fiscal year will be at least $1.3 trillion.
Stimulus Plan
The spending legislation also follows the $787 billion economic stimulus package that Obama signed into law last week. The stimulus bill included no earmarks, according to Obama; the omnibus bill includes thousands of such projects.
The measure would reverse some of Bush"s policies. It would relax Cuba travel restrictions by allowing families to visit relatives there once a year rather than once every three years. It would also reverse Bush administration restrictions imposed in 2005 on food and medicine sales to Cuba.
The bill also dumps a Bush administration proposal to double the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, blocks a plan to allow Mexican trucks to operate widely in the U.S. and ends a private debt-collection program run by the Internal Revenue Service.
Regulatory Agencies
The measure would boost the budgets for regulatory agencies Democrats have said were inadequately funded during the Bush years. The bill would provide the Consumer Product Safety Commission with $105 million, a 31 percent increase from last year. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission"s budget would also grow by 31 percent, to $146 million.
The Food and Drug Administration"s budget would grow 19 percent, to $2 billion. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration would get $513 million, a 6 percent increase. The Securities and Exchange Commission would get a 4 percent increase, to $943 million.
The bill wouldn"t restore what had been a long-standing ban on offshore oil drilling that Democrats agreed to rescind last year after Republicans complained Congress was not doing enough to lower gas prices. Many Republicans had predicted Democrats would reinstate those restrictions once the November election had passed.
School Program Dispute
Another provision would end a school-voucher program in Washington D.C. after the 2009-2010 school year. That proposal sparked criticism from House Minority Leader
John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. In a statement, he said the school-choice program "has provided hope for thousands of low-income children in the District of Columbia" and that eliminating it "would represent an irresponsible and shameful act" by Democrats.
Other parts of the omnibus bill would bar poultry products from being imported from China and spend $4.3 million to improve road access to a Shanksville, Pennsylvania, memorial marking the Sept. 11, 2001, crash of Flight 93.
Lawmakers writing the bill acceded to complaints by Chief Justice
John Roberts that Congress has repeatedly failed to provide federal judges with cost-of-living pay increases. Roberts said in a December report that Congress "unfairly" denied inflation adjustments, which has led to a steady erosion in judicial pay.
Under the omnibus legislation, circuit and district judges would get 2.8 percent increases to $184,500 and $174,000, respectively. Roberts" salary would be boosted to $223,500 from $217,400, and Supreme Court associate justices would get $213,900, up from $208,100.
Dems not through spending yet
