The Incredible Bloated Money Bill
The New York Times | Editorial
Friday 21 November 2003
The Republican-led Congress is wallowing toward a garishly spectacular
finale: a $284 billion omnibus spending bill, a haphazardly stitched hulk
that gives a bad name to the usual legislative metaphors about
sausage-making and bauble-laden Christmas trees. This bill, being rigged
as a take-it-or-leave-it voting prod for lawmakers antsy to get home, begins
by combining five expensive measures that deserve separate votes
because they are vital for financing much of the government next year. But
the real political goal is to festoon this appropriations wad with an
incongruous mix of resurrected controversies, hometown pork and
hot-button proposals.
The megameasure is daily shifting. As it stands now, President Bush is
threatening a veto of the whole thing if G.O.P. leaders fail to include his
controversial proposal curtailing overtime pay in the private sector. This plan
was previously rejected by the lawmakers, but that doesn't seem to matter
in the current end-of-session garage sale, where Speaker Dennis Hastert
works to bend the members to the White House's will. One regrettable deal
previously rejected has been suddenly revived: a plan to force a voucher
system on the public schools of the capital city.
It is no comfort that there is still a week's bargaining left before the Capitol
auction gavel descends. In a resurrection worthy of Transylvania, a
nefarious $7.2 billion sweetener for doomed tobacco growers has flapped
back to life, its chances uncertain. The real pity, large as the omnibus bill
itself, is that the full contents and damages will not be known for weeks,
even by the lawmakers who vote for approval. If the old Congressional
problem was gridlock, the new one is juggernaut.
nytimes.com |
