Congress Passes $388 Billion Spending Bill

:grr:

and now they're flaunting it in our faces.

And we're drowning in debt. These people have no clue how to govern. Their short-sightedness threatens to plunge us into a global depression.

Depressing.

-Laelth

This is low, given the circumstances this county is in.

:shakes head in shame:

This makes me sick.
All thats going on in this country and they take the time out to give the president even MORE vacation time?

Sickening.

He's run outta stuff to do on all his vacation time in office, y'know.

A yacht! Woah!

Wow.


Hahahaha! Is it playtime already? Jesus christ I gotta get outta here.

That means we lost some "dems", right?

makes me sick. I am really angry right now.

But after reading Sangh0's post below, I realize it's not that bad.

The voice of skepticism, we need you here. Thanks, sangh0.

I guess the king/boy emperor needs his.

being the president and all.

I'm sure we all remember the time when Clinton wouldn't sign off the budget bill back during his first term. Why can't the Democrats show a little backbone, especially the ones who are on the way out? In another thread, Daschle voted for the abortion restrictions. Have we lost the Democratic party?

The Dems in the Senate got an agreement that requires a vote on the abortion provision, which can still be subjected to delay. Basically, the Dems lost nothing, and gained the opportunity to put every Senator on the record for their vote, so in the midterm elections, the 66% of the American voters will know who to vote for.

And consider yourself exSQUEEZED. ;)

A fucking YACHT???!!!!!

:wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow:

NICE "MORAL VALUES" when it's other peoples' money and LIVES.

not like them latte lovin liberals!!!

:crazy:

To fit into limits demanded by Bush as part of his effort to trim the record budget deficit, Republicans agreed to make an across-the-board cut in spending levels backed earlier by the House and Senate, provoking anger among some lawmakers.

EXCEPT FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL YACHT.

so they don't get no more trees to hug. go to canada if ya don't like it!!

going to Canada. One more year! :)

Can't take living in this military fascist dictatorship a day longer than we have to.

One more year! One more year! :) :) :)

I hope you go out on the yacht and fall into the brink

to pay for it. Otherwise, we are hosed.

I wonder how many of our elected officials read the 1000 page document. Most don't and they vote on it anyway. Once again the Democrats rolled over in the Senate and didn't filibuster this bill to get the abortion issue out of the Bill. I've had enough, when I get back to the States I will be turning my voter registration in. Let the country go to the Repukes---love to see it go down hill---what a piece of shit America has become!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

... our Democratic Senators weren't given time to read the bill. It was dumped on their desks about 4 hours before they were scheduled to vote on it. They were steamed too. Big fight on the Senate floor last night on C-Span 2. One particular provision, giving the chairs of the appropriations committees of the Senate and the House full access to all IRS records caused quite a stink. The R's blamed a "staffer" for sliding the measure in. In off-the-floor wrangling, it looks like the house is being asked to remove that provision next week, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

-Laelth

and John McCain pointed out during the debate that since the bill was finished late Friday night/early Saturday morning, most senators received their printed copy around noon. So it would have been physically impossible for any senator to have read the entire bill.

It was only through sheer luck that the Dems found the IRS provision before it passed.

this from the NY Times:

Republicans hailed the measure for holding the line on domestic spending levels through a slight across-the-board cut, but Democrats said the voluminous bill - which rose more than a foot high - was being forced through too quickly.

"Have you read this bill well enough to have confidence you know what is in it?" Representative Brian Baird, Democrat of Washington, asked his colleagues on the House floor.

They caught the IRS provision...but what other horrors lurk inside that nobody's caught yet?

Most notable perhaps was the Sequoia, used by FDR, Kennedy and Nixon among others.

Interesting that Bush wants to dump The New Deal but let's use tax payer dollars in a time of record deficits to revive the Presidential yacht? Bah.

...because it didn't fit his image of the presidency...he thought it was too imperial. :)

Figures chimpboy would just HAVE to have one.

language in the Bill before it was passed?

in April 05, till then the provision can be put into effect. Who believes that it will be reversed in April, 05 given that the Senate has more repubs than the previous election?

Congressional negotiators reached agreement yesterday on a spending package that provides a 3.5 percent raise for federal civilian employees, more than double that sought by President Bush.

In other developments, lawmakers dropped language forcing the OMB to abandon revised rules designed to speed up the competitions run by agencies to determine whether private contractors can do federal work more cheaply than civil servants. The provision, sponsored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), had earlier won approval in the House and in a Senate committee.

Also dropped was language that would have guaranteed federal employees in every agency the right to reorganize their work units as "most efficient organizations" -- with fewer workers, for example, or better technology -- when they go up against contractors in competitions involving 10 or more jobs.

The measure would have required contractors to show savings of at least 10 percent or $10 million to win a competition . Such restrictions still apply to the Defense Department, but the White House had threatened to veto any effort to expand them government-wide. "The Bush administration through its actions is once again showing its disrespect for the people who deliver valuable public services every day," Van Hollen said. In a statement, Mikulski said: "I will keep fighting to fix the competition process that is shamefully slanted in favor of private contractors."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A859-2004Nov20.html