From Redstate.com…
Posted by Erick Erickson
Wednesday, December 15th at 5:00AM EST
The Senate has released an omnibus appropriations bill that blows the lid off spending. They waited until the last possible minute to put it out for review. It is 1,924 pages long, filled with earmarks, and goes so far as to declare Nevada a Pacific Coast state so it can get in on a few million dollars to protect salmon. The Democrats have also put a provision in the legislation to begin funding Obamacare.
It is insane and the GOP claims it will fight. Naturally though, several of the outgoing Republican Senators have decided they can finally flip the middle finger at their constituents. Senator Susan Collins is joining these departing senators — Voinovich, Bennett, Bond.
Posted by James Richardson (Profile)
Tuesday, December 14th at 4:43PM EST
Senate Democrats unveiled earlier this afternoon a 1,924-page omnibus spending bill to fund the government through fiscal year 2011. Aides to GOP legislators on Capitol Hill have already begun poring over the $1.1 trillion package, describing the proposal as “a total mess” to Fox News.
Republican lawmakers — including those in the lower chamber, like Speaker-elect John Boehner — are already vowing to help kill the appropriations measure, which freezes 2010’s $3.5 trillion budget for the following year without allowing for any spending cuts.
Offered in the waning days of the present congressional session, the bill designates $80 million in federal funds for the preservation of Pacific salmon and $14 million in clean water grants for Alaska’s native population. Of course, it doesn’t end there.
We’ve obtained a copy of the lame duck legislation so that RedState’s readers might begin dissecting the bill, posting the most egregious examples of pork barrel spending in the comments section. Embedded below the fold you will find the full nearly 2,000-page document.
An update…
According to a tally by Sen. John McCain’s office, the legislation includes 6,488 earmarks totaling nearly $8.3 billion. In a speech from the floor of the Senate, McCain blasted the bill, asking is his colleagues if they had been “stricken with amnesia” for appropriating such wild earmarks only weeks after a swift electoral rebuke for Democrats.
“Enough with the spending, enough of mortgaging our children and our grandchildren’s futures. The phenomenon of the Tea Party — taxed enough already — they were against the spending, the earmarking,” McCain, who is looking to force the bill be read in its entirety from the floor of the Senate, said. “What is going on here? Are we tone deaf? Are we stricken with amnesia?”
The senator’s aides — as well as the senator himself on Twitter — have begun circulating what they deem the most outrageous and wasteful spending measures in the bill. Some choice selects:
$247,000 - Virus free grapes in Washington State
$413,000 - Peanut research in Alabama
$125,000 - Fishery equipment for the Guam Fisherman’s Cooperative Association
$349,000 - Swine waste management in North Carolina
$277,000 - Potato pest management in Wisconsin
$246,000 - Bovine tuberculosis treatment in Michigan and Minnesota
$522,000 - Cranberry and blueberry disease and breeding in New Jersey
$500,000 - Oyster safety in Florida
$400,000 - Solar parking canopies and plug-in electric stations in Kansas
$165,000 - Maple syrup research in Vermont
Editor’s note: I typically stay away from the comments posted on these articles… but there were a couple on this one that I couldn’t resist…
It’s past time for the Senate GOP to tell Reid, et al that they will vote for the tax bill and the House CR, and filibuster everything else. The Dems lost the election, and it’s time for them to go home. In the words of Oliver Cromwell:
“You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
This one says it all…
In the name of God, go!
However, to dumb it down to the preschool level that might possibly be understood by our present-day congresscritters, I quote the inimitable Dr. Seuss:
Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!
The time has come.
The time has come.
The time is now.
Just go.
Go.
Go!
I don’t care how.
You can go by foot.
You can go by cow.
Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!
You can go on skates.
You can go on skis.
You can go in a hat.
But
Please go.
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